The mule deer buck was just across the clearing behind a cluster of aspens, but Daniel couldn't see anything but the antlers when the buck raised his head at intervals to listen and scent the air. As he browsed, the buck moved across the clearing, and had the eagle not screeched, would have been in the sights of Daniel's rifle in a few more minutes.
The buck had raised its head at the sound and its large ears swiveled, searching for any sound that might mean a wolf or cougar was near. The eagle screeched again, and all Daniel could see was the black tip of a tail as the buck disappeared into the dense underbrush that surrounded the fallen ponderosa pine. Daniel cursed silently and looked up to see the huge nest perched at the top of tall, dead oak.
He'd come across the fallen tree the day before while scouting for trapping sites for the coming winter. It lay just a few yards from the bank of a beaver pond and Daniel had found the small, round pellet droppings of deer sign when he investigated. The next morning at first daylight, he'd gone back to the small clearing and waited. The tall grass and shrubs were ideal forage for deer, and his meat supply was getting low.
Daniel had seen areas like this many times in the past years. As age and boring insects weakened the tall, thick trunk, the big tree eventually began to rot at the base. Through the years, wind and snow weighted the branches and stressed the partially rotted trunk. Ultimately the tree fell over, another casualty in the never-ending cycle of life and death in Nature. In the process of falling to the ground, the massive trunk and spreading limbs would clear a swath through the other trees and underbrush.
The falling of the pine meant sunlight could reach the ground again, and it was as if some unseen planter had sprinkled the seeds of grasses, small, bushy plants and aspen trees on the needle covered ground. The snowmelt and subsequent rains brought those seeds to life. They sprouted, then flourished into grasses, wild flowers, small bushes, and the thickets of aspen that seemed to be everywhere.
Here and there, small pine trees only half a foot tall dotted the clearing. These were the offspring of the giant pine that now lay dead and rotting into more topsoil. Only one, or maybe two would enjoy the protection of the aspens until strong enough to stretch for the sun and fill the clearing again. The rest would be eaten by grouse and other animals, or would be choked out by the underbrush. It was the way of Nature that many would be born, but few would reach maturity.
Daniel squinted as he looked up at the eagle. There were two, instead of one as he'd thought before seeing the nest. The pair would have a chick in that nest by now, and they were just telling him to stay away. Daniel smiled at the pair of large birds screeching at him through open, yellow hooked beaks as they spiraled through the brilliant blue sky.
"Go back to your chick, I ain't a gonna bother you none."
Daniel smiled again when the eagles paid him no heed and continued to screech. Six years before, he would have been infuriated at losing the buck and probably would have taken a shot at one of the eagles, but that was before he grew to understand the ways of the mountains. The eagles were doing exactly as Nature intended them to do. The buck had done exactly what Nature intended him to do. Daniel waved at the angry birds as he walked down to the beaver pond. He understood that Nature intended for him to miss a kill now and then.
Daniel walked quietly on feet accustomed to feeling through the soles of his moccasins for sticks that might snap or leaves that might rustle and betray his presence. Just as had the mule deer, he stopped often to listen. That action had become reflex rather than conscious thought, a reflex honed over the years of hunting to survive and surviving to live the life he loved. He wasn't hunting now, but the reflex was still there, protecting him from the only animal likely to harm him -- a grizzly bear. Bears could be incredibly quiet for such a large animal, but still made some sounds one experienced at listening could hear.
Just inside the aspens and willows that ringed the large pond, Daniel stopped. The twin wakes of two beavers broke the flat surface that mirrored the sky above. Another beaver surfaced just in front of him and ambled slowly up the bank toward an aspen that already bore the marks of a beaver's massive front teeth. Had Daniel wanted a beaver stew for his supper, it would have been a simple matter to raise his rifle and shoot. He didn't. It was still early spring, and the beavers would be thin from the winter. They would also have young in the dome shaped lodge in the middle of the pond, young that would fill his traps when the snow fell. The pelt wouldn't be worth much anyway, not until the chill of fall caused it to grow long, thick, and glossy.
Daniel grinned and stepped out of the aspens. Though beavers didn't see very well at a distance, this one saw the movement and ran the short distance to the pond as quickly as its short legs would carry it. Once in the water, it dived for the bottom and gave the water's surface a hard slap with it's broad, flat tail as it went under. At that sound, the other two beavers did the same, and except for a few ripples, the pond was again a mirror of the sky and the pines on the opposite shore. Daniel turned and retraced his steps back to the clearing where the walls of the small cabin he was building already reached his chest.
Daniel was the fourth son of Johnathan and Martha Graves, and grew up on the family farm about twenty miles from St. Louis, Missouri. His three brothers inherited his mother's easy-going manner and unquestioning belief in the Bible. They fit into the family like peas in the same pod.
Daniel's personality was a copy of his father's. Though Johnathan Graves was just as devout in his beliefs as Martha, he found it a challenge to live his life according to those beliefs. Johnathan was quick tempered when challenged and not one to give in to anything or anyone. Only Martha's quiet kindness kept him in check.
When Daniel was just a boy, that same fiery personality resulted in several black eyes when he refused to back down from boys older and larger than he. Though not quickly enough to suit him, Daniel grew up, both in size and strength. By the time he was sixteen, Daniel was a little over six feet tall and weighed two hundred and ten pounds on the scale at the general store in Runyon, the closest town to the farm. His height gave him confidence, and the work hardened muscles gave him the strength to back up that confidence.
Those older boys no longer taunted the boy who would not back down even though they bloodied his nose or blacked his eye. Now, they backed away from Daniel, the young man who used his size to intimidate them. Too often, they'd felt the pain of Daniel's fist to their gut or to the side of their head. As a result, Daniel had no real friends, and the few girls his age who went to the church in Runyon on Sunday thought him a bully.
It was at that same age that Daniel slowly began to realize he hated farming. It was just an endless cycle of the same plowing, planting, hoeing, and harvesting, and the continual feeding of the livestock and then cleaning the manure from the small barn and chicken house and spreading it on the fields.
The family worked the fields for the single purpose of providing food for themselves and the livestock for the coming winter. They kept the livestock to assist in that work and to provide meat and eggs. There was no future that looked better. Were he to take a wife and clear land for his own farm, that would only mean even more work until he could plow and plant, and then slipping back into the same unending cycle. Still, just as his father and his grandfather, Daniel knew no other way to live.
The alternative came to Daniel in the spring of 1822 by way of a travelling man who sold remedies for about anything that could ail a body, or so he allowed. Dr. Horace Mason had just come from St. Louis where he made the medicine, and brought news of an expedition being formed. A former Army officer by the name of Ashley needed strong, young men to find the source of the Missouri River, and once there, trap beaver for three years.
Daniel knew nothing about trapping, but it was a way to find out if there was more to life than the farm. That Thursday, Daniel sat down with his mother and father after supper to tell them of his decision. Though they'd expected something like this to happen, Daniel's mother and father were taken aback by the three-year time span and by the distance their son would be away from home.
Martha sniffed into her hanky.
"What if something happens to you, if you break your leg, or if those heathen Indians attack you? You might be dead and I wouldn't even know for three years."
Daniel chuckled.
