Letter from the Editor
First off I would like to apologize to everyone. I
didn’t have my head screwed on straight after I got home from
convention. Anyway I owe you all a big thank you for a job
well done putting on a really nice convention. To the board,
the traders, the demonstrators and everyone one who came and
enjoyed.
THANK
YOU!!
Bill and I now have the new website up and running for you all
to enjoy. Hopefully we will have all the needed info on it
concerning our great association the WSMLA.
www.wyomingmuzzleloaders.com
The April newsletter
is posted on it.
This info concerns the clubs who
are sponsoring State Sanctioned Shoots. The name of the
shooter, target and scores for all competitors shall be posted
out where everybody can see them throughout the event.
I guess you all will just have to
keep checking the website ever once in awhile to see if the
newsletter is on it, since I have very few e-mail address’s,
so I can’t notify everybody when it will be there.
If you want to help sell raffle
tickets or buy them for the trade gun, you need to get hold of
Carrie Gavin. Her address and phone number is on the board of
directors list.
If anyone out there has old
newsletters from the beginning of the association through
1986, could I talk you into sending them to me? I will copy
them and return them to you. I need the info for the
Historical records. THANKS
Another project that I’ve been
toying with is a photo album for the association, or someone
who would be willing to put one together. Then we could have
it at convention for everybody to look through. It would be
nice to see how we were in the past and for the new people to
see how it was. I enjoyed the pictures that were posted in
registration this year at convention. Maybe this would be a
good project for one of the ladies of this great outfit, I
sure hope so anyway.
Well enough blather out of this
old man, see ya some place down the road. Got me a new flinter-she
is going to be my primary rifle with any luck. Now, maybe Ron
will quit giving me such as bad time about being a percussion
man, who knows.
The Old Trader
“Innkeeper, I’ll have a whiskey…..no, on
second thought make it a pint”. I’m plumb parched and a
flagon of ale sounds a whole lot better to this old man right
now”. The man sighed and wiped the dust from his sweaty brow.
“Comin’ right up Gov’ner”, bellowed the
barkeep, as he pulled the tap handle and drew a pint for the
thirsty stranger.
“Haven’t seen ya here in Parsons before,
good sir”, pried the barkeep, “Looks like you’ve spent your
whole life in the mountains, for sure, he added, as he sized
up the grizzled gent with the long, scraggly beard.
“Guess you could say that”, replied the
newcomer who met the barkeep’s gaze with steely eyes that had
seen it all. “Name’s Black, James Alfred Black…..folks just
call me J.A.”, he added with a wink. Raising his stein to his
lips, he paused in a toast to the innkeeper; “We surely thank
you”.
Seeing the conversation wasn’t
immediately going to develop further at the moment, the
innkeeper nodded and as he began his return to the bar,
remarked, “You’re most welcome now for sure, and if ye be
needin’ a room for the night or anything else, just say the
word”
“Very kind of you sir, but I’m going to
be looking at the old Black place and I just dropped by for
some refreshment before I head out of town”, he added. “If
the place looks suitable ’m thinking I’ll settle here, for
awhile anyway”, JA added. Little did the barkeep know that
this very hamlet was his birthplace over sixty years ago. But
with his exodus over 40 years previous a fair sized town had
grown up around what JA remembered of the village.
Indeed, he did hope to re-establish some
roots and live his remaining years in a manner to which he
would like to become accustomed. At least, a life of ease was
what he had dreamed about on the long, annual sojourns he had
taken each summer into the shinin’ mountains. There at
rendezvous he’d trade rifles, whisky, gun powder, traps,
tobacco, and other fooferaw with the trappers and return with
their many packs of plews. Back in St. Louis the beaver,
muskrat and an occasional buffalo robe would bring more than
enough money for him to lay up for the winter. re-supply the
necessities for his business, and in a good year still have a
few pieces of silver left. Those he’d tuck away in a satchel
he kept hidden in the paunch of a full sized mounted bison he
kept in the kitchen, its horns facing west, always facing west
towards the mountains and the next rendezvous.
It had been a good run, but the
underbelly of the fur trade had long since exposed it’s
vulnerability to the changes in fashion, and the beaver had
pretty well been trapped out. Being the entrepreneur he was,
he had continued to supply the endless wagon trains of
settlers hoping for greener pastures on the trails headed
west, and following that, the buffalo hunters. If you knew
where to look, many kettles, belt axes, Green River knives,
and other assorted goods probably still displayed the cryptic
“spaenx, bdrxxx, llmzzV” identification engravings that were
his trademark. But he was tired. It was time for him and his
wife Kay to relax; maybe do some research into his ancestry,
and maybe go through the many journals of his travels and
publish some books.
He had a much younger half brother that
supposedly still lived around these parts, a man named Dusty,
but it had been years since they had talked. A sister Janie
had gone to the heavens a few years back but still JA wanted
to find his parents’ old place and have a reflective, personal
look around before letting brother know he was moving back.
So many years, so much black powder sent to the heavens. JA
sighed, shook his head as if to pull himself back to the
present, and rose to his feet to leave. “My good man…., I’d
best be on my way. Can you direct me to the land agent so I
can verify where I think the Black place is situated?”
“Surely now I can”, but you won’t be
needin’ a land agent. The old Black place is just a few
furlongs north and then a few more to the east”, offered the
innkeeper, gesturing this way and that. “When you get to the
Hubenkowitz saddle shop, that pretty well is the end of
town…..you can’t miss the turn to the east”, he added. You
can’t miss the old Black place….just look for the grove of old
pecan trees down by the river”
“We thank you kindly now”, nodded the
old man as he tipped his well worn, broad brimmed, fedora with
its colorfully quilled band.
The innkeeper went to the window and
watched as the old trapper climbed on a well used wagon being
pulled by an even older white nag, and as he took the reins,
clucked “Let’s go, Caprice”. The innkeeper watched as they
steadily rolled up the hill and out of sight headed north.
“I reckon there’s a lot more to that old
man than what meets the eye”, the innkeeper said out loud as
if there were someone to hear his words.
*** Two ***
It had been a long ride, despite the innkeeper’s words
that it was “only a few furlongs this way and then that”,
grumbled the old man. “The tipsy lummox probably hasn’t gone
further than the wine cellar out back of the inn”, he
snorted. The August sun was high in a cloudless sky, and with
a “whoa, Caprice”, the wagon came to a stop under a stately
elm where JA reached into the back of the wagon and withdrew a
gourd canteen, pulled the stopper and took several glugs of
water. Wiping his dripping, chest length beard with a shirt
sleeve, he looked around him and surveyed the territory. In
the distance, he could make out a dense thicket of trees.
“That’s probably the river….it’s starting to look familiar”,
the old man thought out loud. “Giddyap, Caprice”, he barked,
and with a tug of the reigns the rattling wagon and its
curmudgeonly driver headed west towards the trees.
Several bumps and ruts later, the wagon
and its grumbling driver came to a broken down gate and in the
clearing ahead he could see a large grove of pecan and walnut
trees. Just ahead was a fair sized cabin that looked to be in
pretty fair shape except for the sod roof which was in need of
some repair.
“Whoa Caprice”, he called to the old
white mare. “I think I’ll have a look around. This certainly
seems like the old home place but it’s so overgrown”. JA
alit from the wagon and surveyed the cabin and the weathered
but still upright out buildings to the rear of the cabin.
The door was locked but he was able to
peer in a dusty window and have a look around. The old place
still contained a few sticks of furniture; primitive living
but adequate for awhile, JA surmised. “I can put the buffalo
right there looking out towards the road….looking west, as
always”, he mumbled.
“In the big shed out back a fellow could
probably set up a small store, or maybe a museum”, he thought
out loud. He then chuckled, “Hell, every place I’ve ever
lived in turned into either a store or museum anyway”.
JA recalled his first “store” back in
Pittsburgh when he was attending University. Though a student
of the King’s English, even then he held a fascination with
history, adventure, and military armament. Instead of books
by Shakespeare, he started collecting revolutionary war
hardware and at one point contemplated buying a large
howitzer. In rapid order, one room of he and his all
suffering spouse’s house soon was taken over by his
collection.
After completing his University
education, he and Kay moved to Summerfield where he began
instructing English at the local school. Kay became a
schoolmarm who taught mathematics. It wasn’t long though
before JA became the Headmaster for the school, but still his
real love was in things that go boom. As in Pittsburgh, one
room of their homestead became a store where JA sold
gunpowder, firearms, and other supplies to the townspeople and
hunters. It wasn’t long before beaver hats came into fashion
and he soon found himself supplying the first companies of
trappers and wayward free spirits headed into the mountains.
Stories were rampant in the village, of
adventure in spades, and fortunes to be made. The long and
dreary days of overseeing the little school in town, began to
wear on JA, and one evening after a particularly dull day in
the schoolhouse, he announced to Kay that he thought he might
buy a couple more wagons and horses in Joplin, and head west
into the Wind Rivers to re-supply the mountain men.
Being the practical one in the family,
Kay asked how he would be able to compete with the big
traders, Sublette, Fitzpatrick and the rest. After all, she
reasoned, they had their own companies of trappers on the
string. JA reasoned that he planned to trade to the free
trappers, and at first offer more for their packs of plews.
It wouldn’t be long, he reasoned, that even the company men
would come around. Before long, he’d have a fair share of the
trade in the mountains and maybe he could make a living. “I’m
just not cut out to be a damned professor”, JA had said.
Gazing through the hzay window pane and
around the spread brought back a flood of memories. His dad
had built him some stilts that were so tall he had to climb up
on the roof to mount them. He remembered how is sister Janie
lost all her eyebrows when he had almost blown up the stove
with gunpowder trying to light it one cold day when the folks
were in town. He chuckled as he remembered getting in trouble
with the fire department for exploding fireworks in town too.
But the biggest fireworks went off when he told Kay that he
was going to quit his job as an educator and head for the
mountains. JA remembered saying firmly; “Anyway, I’ve made up
my mind. I talked to T. Bennett Lehman this morning about
building me some rifles and pistols to trade. He’s one of the
best gun makers in these parts for sure. The challenge is
going to be to get him to speed up his production and cease
doing those damned fancy inlays that only add to the cost and
bog him down”.
And so it came to be. JA had left Kay
behind in the settlements to tend school while he amassed a
goodly assortment of hard goods and fooferaw to take with him
to the Rocky Mountains. He had gotten somewhat of a late
entry into the business but his plan paid off. Where
Fontenelle and Fitzpatrick would pay $2.50 per plew, JA would
offer $2.75. It wasn’t long before word got out that he not
only paid more in trade but had a better line of goods. He
carried with him a few T Bennett Lehman rifle guns to be sure,
but his claim to fame became trade beads.
No one really understood why JA even
messed with so many different varieties and colors of the
damned glass things, and to make matters even dicier, they
were quite breakable unless well padded and packed for the
trip to rendezvous each summer. But the mountain men and
their squaws liked them and it seemed to be what set him apart
from the other traders with their kegs of pony beads and
occasional strands of Coeur d’ Alenes or padres. It also
helped JA gain the lion’s share of the bead trade with the Nez
Perce, Flatheads, and other native tribes that came to
rendezvous.
** * THREE ***
JA took a deep sigh and turned away from
the window of the old cabin. “Guess this will do just fine.
Needs a fair amount of fixin’ up but I think Kay and I can
retire here and make ends meet”. When he had put the padlock
on the store back at Fort Simple just west of St. Louis, he
found the buffalo in the kitchen pretty well full of silver
and gold coins. If he spent his savings wisely, he might just
make it without having to live like a pauper.
With one final glance back, he boarded
the rickety wagon and clucked; “Giddyap Caprice” and headed
for the gate and the town. He’d get a room at the inn for the
night, call on the land agent in the morning and buy his
childhood home, and then set about finding his brother Dusty.
On his way down the rutted road, he remarked out loud; “Could
be a dandy location for a little store though….stock a few
guns, some leather goods, and maybe a few beads if there’s
anybody in these parts still interested in the damned things
Once a trader always a trader I
guess……..”
Stands-In-Ants
JA
Black, the cowby Parons, KS, Circa 56
Rabbit Huntin’ Walkin’
Eagle Style
Loaded up all the huntin’ equipment in the old pickup
truck, put the .45 Leman in the gun rack along with shootin’
bag and horn. Drove out to the head of Sage Creek east of
Worland. Remembered that I forgot to go buy a small game
license. Oh well! I doubt if the local game fuzz will come out
here anyway. Jumped out of the old truck, put the bino’s in
one pocket, a couple sandwich’s and a warm beer in another, a
rabbit call around my neck, grabbed the Leman, shootin’ bag
and horn. Headed down off this long old ridge towards the head
of Sage Creek. I knew of a place where I’d seen a lot of
rabbit sign in October when I was out there deer huntin’. This
is November and still no snow on the ground to speak of so it
was easy going for this old man. Anyway I wandered down a side
draw until I came to the rabbit waterin’ hole, there I set up
my sagebrush blind. Got everything ready and cozy for a day of
watchin’ the old waterhole, which by the way had a skim of ice
on it. So decided I’d better go cut a hole in it so Mr. Bunny
could get a drink. That done I headed back to the blind and
got settled back in.
Caught movement out of the corner
of my eye up on this high ridge to me left, grabbed the bino’s
for a better look, sure enough it was a couple bunny rabbits.
By now they was just sittin’ there looking’ around and doin’
what rabbits do ya know. Well says I, it will be awhile fore
they get here so guess I will take a little snooze.
When I woke up the sun was high in
the sky, I decided it was time to make use of those two
sandwiches and that now cool beer and to look around to see if
I could locate those two rabbits. Couldn’t see them anywhere
so decided to use my rabbit call, blew on it a couple times
and saw movement on a ridge to my right. I thought all right,
going to get some action now. Got the old Leman capped and set
on my cross sticks, got the bino’s out and sure enough I was
going to get some action. Blew one more time on the call, real
loud and screechy like. They was within about 75 yards and a
comin’ in fast. I decided to let them get about 40 yards or so
away before I let the back one have it, Kaboom lots of smoke
couldn’t see nothin’ When the smoke lifted, boy did I have a
fine prize, one of the biggest Coyotes I’d ever got with the
old Leman.
Copper
Lady’s Vittles
With the early
stirrings of spring and the last snows for the winter (we
hope), this is a good time to go over your equipment for food
preparation and eating. Trail food and utensils used by
Rogers Rangers on scouting excursions described in
Muzzleloader (November/December 1993) lists the following
basics: horn mug or tin cup, small kettle, canteen or tin
flask for rum, antler salt horn, tin plate, clasp knife and
fork, knife with sheath and tin spoon. Large cooking fork and
spoon that hang on the fire iron are handy.
Most
of us also take along fire irons, a cast iron pot or two, and
some sort of skillet. We may prefer a wooden spoon or
antique knife-fork-spoon set used with enameled cup and
plate. What we choose to carry depends on our level of
primitiveness' and how its transported. What is carried on
horseback will obviously be more compact than in a trailer
behind a pickup.
Now
is the time to go over your supplies, replace what’s gotten
lost, strayed or stolen since you last went to rendezvous.
Notice what seasonings you want to add, what equipment needs
replacement. Check for items put away dirty or which have
become dusty over the winter, and for ones with so many nicks
and knocks they need to be replaced or put on a shelf to
remember the good times.
This
is a much better to think about all this than midnight the
night before you want to get up at dawn to head out.
If
you get new cast iron cookware or the old one needs re-curing,
you might consider cleaning it out with a hot sudsy water, dry
over heat. At the campsite, fill it with oil for deep fat
frying something like Dutch Oven Sinkers. (Or deep fry your
dinner meat in it.)
Dutch Oven Sinkers
(adapted from Old Fashioned Dutch Oven Cookbook, by Don
Holm)
2
cups flour
½ tsp. salt
2
tsp baking powder 2 tsp
shortening
½ cup sugar
dash of nutmeg
1
egg or milk or water
Mix
flour, salt, baking powder, nutmeg and sugar with shortening
into a coarse mixture and store in the refrigerator until
ready to use.
At
campsite, and oil is almost ready to fry the Sinkers add an
egg or enough liquid to the dry mixture to make a stiff dough.
Break into small chunks and gently slide into the hot deep
fat. Makes a tasty dessert or snack.
Antelope
Steaks
Cut from the hip bone in ¾ inch steaks, antelope steaks make
good eating. For a change of pace, or to reduce the gamy
flavor, marinate the steaks overnight before cooking. When
ready to cook, lift the steaks from the marinade and drain on
paper towel. Lightly brown a bed of sliced onions in the pan.
Flour both sides of the steak, push the onions aside and lay
steaks in the middle. After both sides are brown, pour in a
small amount of your favorite juice (apple, wine, other) and
reduce the heat to allow the meat to simmer to tenderness.
Serve with your favorite carbohydrate or try Potatoes
Lyonnaise.
Try this to Marinate
Sprinkle garlic salt or similar seasoning over the meat and
place in a dish. Mix in a bowl 1 Tbsp vinegar (balsamic or
other), 1 Tbsp soy sauce and a dash of Worcestershire sauce,
and pour over the meat. Turn it a couple of times to make
sure both sides absorb the flavors.
Potatoes Lyonnaise
(From The Buckskinner’s Cookbook)
Fry a small, sliced onion until limp, add diced or thinly
sliced potatoes (previously boiled). Turn frequently until
potatoes are mostly browned. Salt and pepper to taste. Or
thinly sliced pre-boiled potatoes could be added to the
antelope steaks and onions when they are nearly done.
Wyoming Muzzle Loading Clubs
