Jeremiah Johnson's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Jeremiah Johnson had one season to make his name, and he did not know a single creek worth setting a line on. He stood outside the log meeting lodge at first light, buffalo rifle across his back, watching smoke curl from the chimney. Inside, the best trappers in the territory were already drinking and lying about their catches. He had come west to be the finest of them and to find a wife who would not look past him. He had six months of hard winter to prove both. He pushed through the door. Men in greased buckskin filled the benches. Pelts hung from every peg. He asked, plain as he could, where a new man might set his traps and come out rich. The room laughed. One old trapper spat on the floor and told him the good country belonged to those who already knew it. Another said the last greenhorn who guessed wrong froze to a tree in November. Jeremiah bought a round with the last of his coin. That bought him talk, but no maps. Every man there had bled for his ground. None would give it away to a stranger with a clean rifle. By afternoon he understood the truth. No white man in the lodge would guide him. If he walked out blind, he would spend the season chasing empty streams and starve before spring. He stepped outside to think. A woman sat on the low bench by the woodpile, sharpening a knife on a stone. Long black hair, feather at the crown, a beaded collar over worn hide. He had seen her arrive alone that morning and speak to no one. He asked if she knew the country north of the lodge. She looked up. "I know every ridge," she said. "Settlers took my mountain. I am going back." He crouched beside her and laid it out. He needed pelts. She needed a rifle and a man who would walk in behind her without asking questions at the wrong moment. He offered the buffalo gun, stock and barrel, once the season closed and his furs were sold. He offered half his take. Running Bear studied his face a long moment. "Rifle first," she said. "Then I show you the beaver creeks. Then we speak about the mountain." He handed the rifle across before he could talk himself out of it. She stood, checked the sight, and slung it over her shoulder as if it had always belonged there. "We leave before dark," she said. "Bring only what you can carry three days without sleep." Jeremiah watched her walk toward the trees with his only weapon on her back. He had traded away the one thing that fed him and kept him alive, for the word of a woman he had known an hour. The season had started. He had no gun, and he had a guide.