Trading Post - SP2022 (just for fun)

I only have a few rules for myself. One of them is that I always keep my mare close to me, so that whatever happens to her, happens to me. The exception is when I’m visiting a saloon, and then I tend to tie Clyde some distance away. Most people just flip a rein around the rail, but not me. Clyde is too precious, and she always travels with a halter under her bridle, with the lead looped over the saddlehorn, unless I tie it around a hitching rail. If somethin’ scares her and she pulls hard against the rein, she could snap it, and places are few and far between where you can repair a broken rein, especially custom reins like mine, which are braided together on my end. Mostly cowboys in town hitch their horses light and easy, but not me. I am always passing through. Until now. Now me and Clyde are here for a reason. For as long as it takes.

I loosened the cinch two notches, so Clyde could rest easy, but not so loose we couldn’t skedaddle if we needed to. If we were camping for the night, I’d have slipped off the bridle. As I rubbed her ears, I could hear the soft tinkling of her fiddling with the copper chuckle on the bit of her bridle. She loved that little thing, and used it often. She was tired, and sensing no danger, almost immediately lowered her head and closed her eyes. I knew her lower lip would be hanging low in no time, and I smiled with fondness for the old girl. We’d been traveling together for a long time. Sometimes I let her pick the direction. She’s as good at it as me, apparently, so why not? Not this time though. This time I was here for the flowers. And hope.

I eased between the batwing doors of the saloon, stepped aside out of the light and paused to let my eyes adjust. The bar was poorly lit, but festive with colored paper lanterns and paintings on the walls. Several round tables were occupied with men playing cards and drinking, and the long bar ran the length of the building on my right. There was a piano in the back, but nobody was playing. A second floor railing fenced the rooms, fed by a slanting staircase with curved and carved hand rail, balusters and newel caps.

Mila walked to the polished bar, and every head turned to take her in. She wore unfringed brown buckskin, shiny with oil and tall, black boots with silver conchos. Her dark hair was platted into a single braid with leather which ran down her back. All eyes tracked her and her hardware as she stood at the bar.


“Ladies ain’t allowed in here, Missy” the grizzled bartender said,
polishing a glass and sneering with tobacco-stained teeth.
I look like a lady to you, Bar Dog?” Mila said, fixing him with flat, dead eyes.
She slapped a $10 gold Eagle on the bar and said softly,
“whiskey. And some information.”

She kept her fingertips over the coin. He set up a tall shot glass and poured from a bottle with no label. Mila slowly drank the glass of amber liquid and set the glass down.
“I’m looking for a man named Coulter. Some call him Pony. S’posed to be a healer or some such."
“Cost you another to find out where he lives. What’s it to you anyway?” the bartender said.
“He knows about flowers.“ she said. “Wild flowers”.


Mila rode up the quartering road which wound around the mountaintop, and stopped Clyde on the top and looked around. She could see for miles in every direction. This was a view of the world. She rode up to the cabin and shouted out,
“hello the cabin! I am armed but not currently dangerous! I am Mila McKenzie.
I want to talk to you about flowers.”
“You’ve changed,” Pony said, stepping down from the high porch.
“Didn’t have much choice”, she said as she swung down from the saddle and hitched Clyde to the fence rail,
“how’d you know me?”
"I remember you ma’am…. I was part of the search party looking for your husband and little girl.
I guess you don’t have much use for them corsets and hoops and bonnets anymore.”

Mila stared at him for several seconds. “That woman died on the mountain.
You want to get along with me, you won’t talk about her any more, you hear?”
Pony nodded, noticing how her fingertips trailed down to the large knife at her belt.

“How long until the Larkspurs bloom?” Mila said.
Pony looked at her for several seconds, his gaze unwavering.
“You won’t find her. If she lived, they have taken her far away, into the Big Belt Mountains or beyond.
The mountains ain’t so big, but the country is rough.”
“She was taken three year ago. I want to find them. I am told that they like the Larkspurs.”
“That’s true, s’far as I know, “ Pony said, “they do seem to love them purple flowers.
Well, you’ve timed it about right. They are gonna bloom in a week or so, ‘least accordin’ to the Almanac.”

He walked around the fire, occasionally looking up at the stars.
“I can take you there. I can’t guarantee that you’ll see them or even that if you do,
they’ll be what you’re looking for. How in the world did you ever find me?” he said.
She drew a bent-cornered dusty booklet from her vest. Strange Tales of the West
“This.” She said, offering the pamphlet. “Your story about the pelted man.
I knew that you knew something about them. When you talked about
them stealing infants, and the red-headed girl I knew you knew something.
Well, here I am. How do I find them? How do I find my daughter?”

“You got me all wrong, Ma’am, “ Pony said, passing his hand from his forehead down his black ponytail,
“that was just a story. I never said I saw these things.”

“You did”. Mila said, “I know. I know that you know where to find them.
Tell me, and I will give you $1000 in gold. You lead me to the field in the story
and stay with me until I’m done, and the gold is yours. I’ll give you $100 now.
If you think you can just take it from me, then I’ve heard wrong about you,
and you’ve heard dead wrong about me.”

“I ain’t no thief” Pony said, “never have been. You hungry, got some beans and rabbit on the stove.”
He jerked his head toward the door of the cabin.

They set out early the next morning. It was cold, but thankfully not much of a wind. She followed Pony’s horse and nodded out now and then. She hadn’t been sleeping lately. She was looking down on the promontory, wondering how they would wind between the two huge drainages.
“Follow me exactly”, said Pony, “this is a simple trail, but unforgiving.”
Mila lay back on the cantle of the saddle, letting her mare choose the path between the rocks which suited her best.

She has had such bad dreams. Such terrible dreams. Sometimes she sees Abby falling, twisting in a spiral down to the river and a giant blood-dripping jaw opening with a snarl to chomp her in two as she screams and screams and screams…….

“MILA!” Pony said, shaking her shoulder.
“You should just go back home, “ Pony said, “this is more dangerous than anything you’ve ever done, I promise you.”
“Hey,” Mila said, “It’s Spring. People should be mischevious and daring in the Spring, right?
Like the elves and imps.”

Pony shook his head sadly. Don't know nothin' about no elves. He was getting too old for this crap.

Clyde slid almost sideways as he skittered down the last 20 feet of the slide, but they arrived at the bottom and she stopped him, to look at where they’d come.
“That’s a wicked piece of trail,” Mila said.

They forded the Gallatin River where it split around Ómakiya Island, and made camp in a stand of Fir and Pine at a sandy bend of a small river.
“What river is this?” asked Mila.
“Not a river, at least not until it pours into the Missouri headwaters.
This is Spring Creek. We ought to be able to catch a
couple of Cutthroats for dinner.”

Mila hobbled the horses and set to gathering wood while Pony went down to the creek. He returned just as the sun dipped below the mountain with four medium trout on a sapling string.
“I already cleaned ‘em, if you want to cook ‘em”, he said, handing the sapling to Mila. She went to a tree and cut four branches with a “V” on the end, and sharpened the other end. She pushed the sharp end down through the fish lengthwise and stuck the end into the dirt so the fish was over the coals of the fire she’d made.
“I expected you’d have a pan with you”, Pony grumbled.
“Cook it yourself then.” Mila said, turning the fish. She fished inside her blouse pocket for a small leather bag of salt, and rubbed some into the skin of the fish.

They both awoke at the same instant to the nervous hoofstamp of the horses.
“What is it? Cougar? Bear?”
“Don’t know. Tramp don’t usually spook from anything,” Pony said. He threw some broken branches on the coals and fanned them into a blaze. He could see the whites of the eyes of Mila’s mare reflected in the firelight.
“Your mare is sure spooked at something.”
Just then, echoing in the drainage next to the creek, a deep thrumming lowing gradually rose in pitch and held for several seconds, truncating suddenly with two short chuffing barks.
“Is that ……?”
“I hope not.” Pony said, “I sure don’t intend to stick around long after
I get you to the field, and I sure as hell don’t want to see them.”

They leaned back, looking at the flames, and Mila mind stretched back four years to a time when she was happy. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Abbey was just six years old. She and Callum were seeking their fortune in the wild west. They had bought a covered wagon and joined a wagon train. They hoped to stake their claim along the Wilamette River near Oregon City and make a new life for themselves. There was a government fort with soldiers and a government office and a state office and even a county court and jail. It was downright modern, at least to hear Collum tell it. He had been west scouting around, and they were sure their destiny lay near the west coast. They were full of hope.

They were on the part of the Oregon Trail which was also the Bozeman Trail, just three days east of Bozeman. They were fording the Yellowstone River. It was spring, and the river was high, but their guides knew what they were doing. Cole, Bryant and Burns. They had made the trip seventeen times, and never – at least according to them – had lost even a single person.

As the wagon ahead of them and theirs slanted down the mancos shale road to the river, the bank suddenly collapsed, and the two wagons and their horses fell into the river. Mila had a moment to scream and grasp for Abbey, and then she was swept away. She struck her head on something submerged, and awoke two hours later on a makeshift bed on the banks of the river. Callum and Abbey had been lost, along with all of the family of the other wagon, crushed upon the rocks next to the river. None of their bodies had been recovered, but swept away in the current. The horses had been shot, having been badly injured. She had nothing. Her life was over.

Years went by. She was part of the lesser known gold rush in Colorado, and had gotten lucky, striking it rich on her claim, and sold it. The memory of watching Abbey swept away from her in the river replayed in her memories and nightmares. And then one day, she was buying staples at the Wapati Trading Post, and she saw the booklet written by Pony. She felt her blood rush as she read how the “others” had been seen in the Larkspur field in Montana, and ..... Mila’s knees wobbled and she slid down the wall, reading the storybook; the legend of the tale talked about a redheaded child who lived among the “Chiye Tanka”, the Lakota phrase for “Big Pelted Elder”. Since then, Mila had revived, and decided to live. She had hope.

Pony was slouched in his old Mexican saddle, awaiting Mila.
“The field is just over this next rise,” he said,
“you follow me close, and you’ll be okay.”
She stretched the fingers of her gloves, and dug the heels of her boots down to stretch them in the stirrups. The purple-dotted green field lay before them as they crested the craggy vent of the ancient volcano.
“When will they come?” Mila asked Pony.
“Honest, lady, I wrote that booklet and sold it for sixteen dollars.
The story came from a fur trapper who worked this valley
for beaver and muskrats. There is no way that the girl – if she exists –
is the same as your daughter. "
“You’ll get paid either way, “ Mila said,
“If you stay with me for a week, I’ll pay you the other $900.”

Mila got up every morning well before sunrise, and sat between the two crossed rocks in the six-foot gap and watched the field. On the last day, Pony said, “I don’t want to leave you up here.
I also don’t want to stay any longer. Why don’t you come down with me.
We can come back up here later in the year if you want.”
Mila pulled out a leather bag with $1000 of gold coins and passed it to Pony.
“Bonus,” she said, “thanks for everything. I’m going to stay for a while.”
Pony gave her all the supplies except that which he’d need to get back home.
“You’re a hell of a woman, Mila,” he said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.
If you get back, look me up. Maybe I can find you something, some job.”

Mila sat the crevice for days, Clyde was hobbled on the downhill side of the mountain, near the creek. She ate little, but watching, using her field glasses to scan the purple valley. Why Larkspur flowers? she wondered. Do they like the color? On the fifth day after Pony left, she saw movement far up in the drainage leading to the valley. It was four shapes, three of them large and dark. Her breath quickened as she watched them stop and look and then furtively creep into the valley. It was the Others, and what appeared from this distance to be a red-headed human child wearing furs and tall leggings.

Mila left Clyde and walked down into the valley, and when she hiked up the rise to see the field, the creatures and the girl were waiting for her. The creatures were crouched down, but their massive muscles and power were apparent. Their hair was reddish and golden, and the sunlight lit them up. Their gentle reddish-brown eyes seemed so human and intelligent, and they didn’t move at all as Mila approached. The creatures were in a half-circle around the girl, who stood up.
“Abbey?” Mila cried, “Is it you? Do you know me?”
“Mama.” Abbey said, making a curious gesture with her hands, and smiled. Two of the creatures made a similar gesture. Mila rushed forward and hugged her daughter.
“Oh, my girl, my girl, my little girl, I never stopped looking
for you, I never stopped, I never gave up, oh my darling girl…. Oh Abbey”
Mila sobbed as she held Abbey away from her to look at her.
“I remember you Mama, “ Abbey said,
“family took me to find you but not find. Name not Abbey.
Name BzzNock!Che”, she said, making a noise which began with a buzz, then a tongue pop. The creatures stood slowly, still looking warily at Mila, but moved as shadows into the field, plucking the Larkspur flowers and putting them into skin bags. One of the creatures sat and looked sadly at Abbey. It was a female and scooted close to her and touched Abbey’s face and then turned and went into the field with the others.

“What are they doing, Abbey?” Mila asked.
“Not Abbey. BzzNock!Che. Me BzzNock!Che. We get flowers.
Dry. Make …………” she struggled to find the word ………
“make water to push away little bites. Fix hurt” Abbey plucked a louse from her head and showed it to Mila. The creatures were using the Larkspur to make an insecticide and a wound treatment.

“I want to get you out of here, BzzNock!Che,” Mila said, struggling with the glottal name of her daughter,
“I have a horse on the other side of the mountain.
We can start all over again, without Daddy.”
“Da-deee,” BzzNock!Che said, “sampling the word slowly,
“Da-dee dead. BzzNock!Che not leave family.
Family want me to go with you. Not leave family,” she said, standing defiantly with her slender fists on her hips.
“Well, then, “ Mila said, “I guess I’m staying,” as she picked up the skin bag and felt BzzNock!Che slip her small hand into hers.

The creatures watched her for the rest of the afternoon, only coming close once, to push Mila’s hand away from wilted and browned Larkspur flowers. Toward sundown, the female rose up fully on her back legs, and was all of 8 feet tall and at least 30 stone. She was clearly far along in her pregnancy. She walked over to Mila and Abbey and sat, her golden liquid pool of eyes calm and unwavering. Her cinnamon face was hairless with widely flared nostrils and a deep brow ridge. She gently placed her right hand on Abbey’s head and her left on Mila’s. She left her massive right hand on Abbey’s head and moved her left to her own head. She then moved her right hand to her swollen belly and moved her left hand to gently cup Mila’s cheek and chin. Mila understood and put her hand over the female’s and nodded. Yes. Yes, she would. She had a debt to pay. She owed them everything.

The female’s eyes were liquid and deep like the heart of the sea, as she parted her lips and grunted, “Aaaa-beeee” and smiled.

Dropping this before I read the other parts:

You have a way with words that kicks off my internal head cinema while reading.

a reply to: TDDAgain


Thank you! I can't imagine a higher compliment! That's what I shoot for, because that's what ramps me up with authors I read. I want to paint a picture, but paint it as much by what I don't say.

Way to go painting pictures with words!
Like watching a movie……..Greta job!!!!!





a reply to: argentus

Enjoyed your story!

Thanks for your submission;
Johnny

a reply to: argentus

You managed to put a lump in my throat, argentus. Please tell me you have more to this story...

From the very start I felt plunged into Mila's evocative world and I knew it would be an adventurous journey. I wasn't expecting it to be so sentimenatl. Also, why is her mare called Clyde? Was it her husband's name? The strange creatures are fascinating and I want to more.

originally posted by: Encia22
a reply to: argentus

Also, why is her mare called Clyde? Was it her husband's name?

Oops, my bad. I forgot you recounted Mila's husband was called Callum. So, why Clyde for her horse's name, which I find endearing, by the way.

a reply to: argentus

I want 10 books..

Also..


I'm a little bit in love with mila..


There I said it...


😇

If I could give applause I would!

Thanks for sharing this 🤠



Respectfully,
~joe


Edit to add.

I can see this as an entire series of adventures and this is the origin story .

Also as encia said..the odd choice of Clyde took me aback.. but somehow helped immerse me more into your world. It just felt genuine..

Plus

Clyde always reminds me of the helpful drunken orangutan in the Clint Eastwood movie every which way but loose..

So it evoked a chaotic yet loyal animal companion feeling for me.

10/10

a reply to: Encia22

I truly don't know why she named her mare Clyde. There is probably a back story lurking there about the mare being previously owned by some colorful character. Perhaps she was Abbey's horse, and Abbey named her. Don't know. Just felt right. Mila and her family came from Scotland, so I just now did a search for "Clyde" AND "Scotland". Well, perhaps they came from the Firth of Clyde, or somewhere on the Clyde River. I guess we'd have to ask Mila, and she's not talking right now.

ETA: I've always theorized that Sasquatch/Yeti/etc. may have been Gigantopithecus blacki, except that their skeletal remains suggest a more ape-like mode of locomotion, and much of Bigfoot anecdotal lore seems consistent with a more human-like upright locomotion.

a reply to: PiratesCut

Much appreciated!

a reply to: JohnnyAnonymous

thank you Johnny!

a reply to: Mike Stivic

You know, when I read your "Clyde" attachment, that felt fairly true, because those movies are on my guilty pleasure list. They are silly, but I always watch and enjoy them.

I would love to write a series. Thanks much for your feedback!

a reply to: argentus

I eased between the batwing doors of the saloon, stepped aside out of the light and paused to let my eyes adjust. The bar was poorly lit, but festive with colored paper lanterns and paintings on the walls.

Damn you are a great Writer .

a reply to: asabuvsobelow

Thank you so much asabuv. May I call you that?

a reply to: argentus

of course