Chapter 2

Early October, 1841
Shoshone River Valley
Wyoming.

The giant, flame-red colt known among wrangler camps as Wild Fire, is now 19.5 hands and coming on eighteen months. With hooves hardened and honed by days and miles of gravel, dirt, sand and stone he’s trekked, he’s as surefooted and agile as an antelope. Though his long legs are strong and muscular, he appears tall and awkward, walking a short distance from the herd as he grazes and keeps a close watch for danger...

... Running full stride, he moves with the power and grace of a Cougar.

And this big red horse was born – running for his life –

The dominant lead-mare refuses to tangle with the majestic young colt, as she casts the remaining yearling colts from the herd each fall. No man alive will ever know – but the real story could just well be – She’s Wild Fire’s adopted-mother...

The facts of nature, rule against most popular tales told about wild horse herds – such as – one lone stallion staying with his herd year round. Hardly ever does a stallion stay and watch over the mares and fillies after breeding season.

Wild Fire did...

Standing proud and erect at 19.5 hands, he’s two foot taller than the mares in the herd – or any stallion throughout the valleys he’s roamed.

Winter is coming hard and fast again this year. High mountain valleys have turned brown behind the first killing frost.

Fall brings an annual intruder to these mountainous rivers and streams.

... Fur Trappers...

Up through the high mountain valley three of them come. Returning to this familiar territory where they have trapped for many seasons. A man, his wife and daughter – each leading a packmule loaded with supplies – and traps.

As they make their way between the tall peaks, headed toward the long flat, meandering run of the Shoshone River Valley below, they see a large herd of wild horses grazing on the tall, dry grass.

“OHHH! Look at that beautiful wild stallion, Willah!” The woman spoke to her daughter, pointing toward the tall, blaze-red horse standing proud and erect, as he watched the three intruders make their way across the swale between two peaks, and down toward the meadow below.

“That, My Ladies, would have to be the horse called, Wild Fire! The young stallion of which the horse traders were telling tall tales about, back at the Trading Post down in the valley.” The man spoke as they stopped to let their mules graze, while watching the wild horses graze along the slope, a short distance above them.

Willah had reason to remember the horsemen they saw that day at the Trading Post. Especially the youngest of them. He couldn’t have been more than a year older than her. Each time she dared glance his way, he was watching her with a quick shy smile curling his lips, as she glanced at him. She had to smile back at him. He was such a tall, pretty boy – and she’s never even talked to a boy in all her fourteen years.

Shaking off her thoughts of the boy she’d seen at the Trading Post, Willah told her parents, “I wish that red stallion would let me run my hands over his sleek red coat, just once,” she spoke as the stallion stepped out away from the herd, head raised, ears cocked forward, looking down at them.

Her papa warned her, “Willah, never try getting any closer to him, or his herd. He’s a wild one ... and mean as a mama bear, when it comes to protecting his mares and their foals.”

“If I had the time, I could make him want to be my friend, Papa.”

Her mama told her, “We have no doubt you could, Willah. But heed your Papa’s words. That beautiful young horse is a wild stallion. It would take weeks and weeks of being even this close, for him to let you come any nearer to him.”

As the three of them moved over the swale, down into the vast river valley below, the stallion moved his herd along the slope above them.

“I want him to remember me, Papa,” Willah said as she turned back, stepping out away from her parents. With both pinky-fingers pressed to her pursed lips, she whistled loud and shrill, calling out to Wild Fire.

The big horse whirled and ran down the slope toward them. Standing tall and proud, he stopped to look at her with his head held high, pawing at the ground with his right forehoof.

“Look, he came back to me when I whistled!”

“That he did, Willah ... Use that whistle each time you see him, or his herd. Perhaps he will, one day let you be his friend,” her papa told her, always proud of her way with animals ... wild – or pets.

Boothe Eduard Pelletier and his Shoshone wife, Mejesse – with their daughter Willah, have made their home on the upper Shoshone River, each fall and winter since Willah was born here. She’ll soon celebrate her fifteenth birthday, and she’s very much involved in the trapping of beaver. Adept at setting traps, skinning, scraping and stretching beaver pelts to dry, Willah runs her own trapline each day during trapping season on the Shoshone.

Beaver flourish along the Shoshone, Big Horn, and Yellowstone Rivers ... and up their many tributaries. Beaver pelts will sell for a premium in the summer, following this cold hard winter in The Rockies.

Boothe Pelletier, now thirty-one, was born in the wilderness of Canada. His father and mother were trappers and they taught him the trade at an early age. His father was French-Canadian. His mother came from the Nakoda Oyadebi People – known as the Shoshoni – by later explorers who crossed this land, mapping and marking trails for the hordes of pioneers who would come west.

Boothe met his wife Mejesse when he was eleven years old, while visiting his mother’s people. Each spring until he was sixteen, he came back with his mother to visit. When he was thirteen, he told Mejesse to wait for him ... and she did. He was sixteen, she was fifteen when they were married by her father – the Chief of the Tribe. Now their daughter is just shy of fifteen and she’s never been around boys.

During the next two weeks, they were busy storing their supplies, after cleaning their log cabin ... Built back against a rock abutment overlooking Willow Creek ... Buttressed by a stone chimney, and two upright cottonwood logs, the cabin’s roof was topped using willow poles covered with limbs, leaves and moss. Over the years, grass and wildflowers grew from the mossy roof, and even now, it is virtually leak proof.

Once they had settled in, the next week was spent scouting the hundreds of beaver dams up and down the long flat run of the Shoshone River, and up the many tributary creeks.

Boothe, Mejesse and Willah each run traplines. With the three of them trapping, they were hoping for the best trapping season ever. The price of furs is dwindling and the beaver are becoming scarcer with each trapping season.

Willah has become an expert at scouting and picking the best spots for setting her traps. Up and out at first light each morning, she keeps her pouch filled with jerked venison and dried berries.

Roaming the mountain wilderness with the fearless sense of a predatory animal, she carries a small skinning knife, a large hunting knife – and her tomahawk. She also carries her .50 caliber Hawken, with which she’s become an expert marksman.

With only a few weeks to go before they begin trapping, Willah spends most of her time scouting the wilderness. Her mama and her papa have both ceased to caution her. She’s too headstrong – too confident in her ability to protect herself.

Her favorite spot to bathe and relax in the sun, is out on the eastern slope of the mountain where they saw the wild horses on their inbound trek to their winter home. Though the mountain air is cool in late fall, on clear days, the sun shines bright and warm against the stone basin where the small, spring-fed bog is located. Deer and antelope come here to water, but seldom does she see signs of other animals. There was no cover for miles in any direction.

Today, she decided to take a small deer, field-dress it and carry it home for jerking.

After bathing, she lay naked, basking in the sun for hours before pulling on her buckskins. Picking up her brass telescope, she scoured the mountainside for deer.

Down the slope and to her left, there was a small herd of Whitetail deer making their way across in front of her. Picking out a small spring-born deer in the herd, she laid her Hawken in the crevice of two stones and raised her sights to a hundred and fifty yards. She knew this small deer would dress-out close to thirty pounds. Just the right size for her to carry home.

She set the front trigger, with her finger ready to touch the rear, hair-trigger. She hesitated when the herd of deer stopped and raised their heads – white tails raised in alarm. Before they could spook, she squeezed the trigger and within a second, the small deer lay dead on the slope. The herd, spooked by the rifle shot, ran down toward the valley below as Willah stood, gathered her gear and headed toward her kill.

Across the swale – on the opposite slope of the nearest peak, there was another hunter watching the same herd. He had hoped the herd of deer would turn and move across in front of him. Suddenly, as he watched, a small deer dropped to the ground – dead...

Seconds later he heard the loud report of a long-rifle. Scanning the far slope with his telescope, he spotted the young Half-Breed Indian girl as she walked down the ridge toward her kill. Remembering her from the Trading Post downriver, he smiled as he watched her.

As he sat behind a small boulder, directly across the long deep swale from the girl, he heard a thundering of hooves off to his left – coming up from the valley. Swinging his scope, he spotted a large herd of wild horses. The same herd which he and his brothers have been trying to drive down the valley and into the hidden corral they’ve built across a narrow pass.

Keeping his scope trained on the big red horse his brothers call, Wild Fire, he watched as the horses ran easily along the slope, within a hundred yards of where the girl now stood next to her kill. She too, was watching the horses as she loaded her rifle.

The young wrangler watched as the red stallion stopped suddenly, looking up the slope toward the girl. Then, the shrill sound of her whistle came to the boy’s ears. He swung his scope around to see the Indian girl with her fingers pressed to her lips as she whistled again.

The red stallion moved away from his mares, up the slope toward the girl. The boy could hardly hear her voice as she called out to Wild Fire ... calling him – as if a wild horse would know his own name. She was holding something in her hand as she reached out to him.

The big horse was wary as he moved closer. He stopped to paw the ground with his right forehoof, tossing his head up and down, his long red mane flowing like a flag in the wind.

The young wrangler knew there was no way anyone could get a wild horse to come eat from their hand. Yet, as he watched – the Indian girl again pulled something from her leather pouch and stooped to scatter a few crumbs on a flat stone in front of her. She stood slowly and backed away, a step or two, calling his name softly the whole time. Talking to the wild horse as if he could understand her – she held her hand out and the big horse walked up the slope toward her. Twice, Wild Fire stopped to look back at his herd, before taking another step ... Then two steps, as he slowly moved closer and closer to the flat stone where she had placed, what the boy now determined to be dried berries.

‘Ain’t-no-way’ he muttered ... watching as the red stallion called Wild Fire by all who knew him – quickly licked up the dried berries, then raised his head as she called his name and held out a handful of berries.