The Fur Trader
Authors: Sam Ferguson
The Fur Trader
By
Sam Ferguson
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
The Fur Trader
Copyright © 2016 by Sam Ferguson
Published by Dragon Scale Publishing
All Rights Reserved
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For my grandfather.
Garrin’s eyes traced down to the steaming mess of red, coppery blood covering his trembling hands. His spear lay in the frigid snow several feet to his left. His antler-handled skinning knife was still clenched in his left hand. He sucked in a breath of burning, frozen air. The snow crunched to his right and then he heard an angry chattering sound moments before a wall of air slammed into his body and carried him over the precipice as if he were nothing more than a doll swept away by an avalanche.
The large man looked upward, glancing at the bright sun shrinking above him as his body descended down amidst a rush of powdery snow. His lungs failed to hold air as his back slammed to a crashing halt and his body broke through the top crust of snow to sink deep into a grave of ice.
Death was as close as it had ever been before, but this time it appeared as if the dark devil was going to come away the victor.
Garrin weakly stretched his right hand upward, willing his body to reach for the cliff looming over him, but his body would not obey his will.
Garrin’s eyes settled back upon the blood on his hand and he was pulled back to the day everything had begun. It was a day not entirely unlike this one, for he had had bloody hands that day as well, and had been deep within the mountains.
As his mind drifted back, Garrin closed his eyes, finding it fitting that Geberron Pass should be his final resting place.
*****
Garrin made one final jerk with his knife and the guts spilled out, steaming in the cool morning air as the blood oozed out over the white snow. The trapper slid each side of the blade across the coarse rag hanging from the right side of his belt, cleaning the blood from the steel before slipping the knife back into its sheath. Facing the deer’s belly downhill, he let gravity do most of the work for him. Once the innards were free from the carcass, Garrin hefted the dead deer onto a sled. It took some shifting to rearrange the load. He had already taken two deer, a fox, four rabbits, and a badger that had pestered Garrin two seconds too long while the trapper had been gathering some snow-berries.
He tied everything down and then moved around the front of the sled. It was slightly longer than he was tall, made from wood, bone, and thick lengths of cord. It was an extremely rugged, yet sturdy piece of equipment. The two split-tails pawed at the snow anxiously as Garrin stepped closer to them.
Most of the other trappers in the area abhorred the idea of using split-tails to pull a sled. To be honest, no trapper in the Dryden Range would even consider keeping a split-tail around at all. They were notoriously mischievous, and had a nose for trouble, but Garrin was no ordinary trapper. He appreciated their strength. A split-tail’s body was like that of a massive wolf, if only the wolf was another six inches taller at the shoulder and a foot wider in the chest. However, unlike other canines, the split-tail had paws that resembled those of a mountain lion, making them extremely agile, silent, and even more deadly. Top all of that energetic muscle with a large snout filled with fangs larger than any domesticated dog, and what you had was a serious beast that could do whatever it wanted.
Garrin had long ago learned how to treat his split-tails right. He hadn’t so much domesticated them as formed a working partnership with them. He had found these two females as pups after a run-in with their mother. Anyone in the village could tell you more than one story of how the two split-tails had nearly chewed off some child’s leg, or snuck into a neighbor’s house in the night, but Garrin had managed to keep the two split-tails safe from their younger days when he hand fed them with a bottle of fresh goat’s milk until now. He knew they were still feral, and if he ever gave them a reason to, they could rip into him as easily as a bear might, but he also couldn’t see any other animal pulling his sled for him.
“Looks like a leg of deer for each of you tonight,” Garrin said as he reached down to pat Rux on her rust-colored head. Rux half-closed her blue eyes and flicked her furry, forked tail.
Kiska moved her head in to steal some of the attention for herself, nipping softly at Garrin’s hand as Rux shied away. Garrin stroked the black and white furred split-tail once down the back of her neck and then pushed her head away.
“Stay on your side,” Garrin chided. Kiska had been like that since he had found them, slightly larger than Rux and always pushing the other animal around. Though, when they were only pups, the size difference had been much more pronounced than it was now. As pups Rux had been only half Kiska’s size. Garrin had needed to work hard each day to feed Rux enough to catch up with Kiska. Now they were nearly the same length and height. Kiska was still larger, but only by a few pounds.
Something crunched off in the trees behind him. Garrin stood and turned, scanning the snowy forest with his keen, brown eyes. The two split-tails growled low and quiet.
“Easy now,” Garrin said as he walked back around to take his place on the sled. “Nothing out in these parts that can scare the three of us, right?”
That wasn’t entirely true, but his calm demeanor spread to his animals. Rux and Kiska kept vigilant, but they obeyed Garrin when he let out a sharp whistle. The sled jolted forward and the two split-tails found their rhythm as their cat-like paws padded the snowy ground softly and Garrin worked the sled behind them.
Even with the two massive animals pulling the sled, it took more than a day to reach his home. By that time, Garrin had been forced to skin one of the deer in the forest so the two split-tails could share the back half of the animal. When his cabin finally came into view, he smiled.
The dark brown logs stood out against the white snow. The back end of the cabin was built snug against a long ridge of stone that rose ten feet above the ground where he had built the cabin. This was a common practice in the mountains to give homes a sturdy, reinforced back wall, but Garrin had taken the idea a step further. He had spent several years carving out a large room in the rock, joining his log cabin with a cave of sorts that could be sealed from either side with a wooden door and, if needed, a stone slab that rolled into place. That chamber was useful not only as a year-round cold storage for his food, but it provided relief from animals as well.
One need only look at Garrin’s front door, which was obviously much newer than the rest of his cabin, to realize the genius of having a room entirely made of stone. Most of the time the bears and other large animals that came in nearer to town would leave the cabin well enough alone, but last year Garrin had been caught by surprise when he returned to find that a grizzly had broken into his cabin through the door and made itself at home inside. Luckily, with the aid of the two split-tails, the bear was dealt with fairly easily, but had it not been for the stone door, all of Garrin’s food supply would have likely been destroyed. As it was, he had needed to spend the better part of a month repairing the cabin and furniture inside.
His sled slowed to a crunching stop atop the crusty snow outside his workshop, which was little more than an open air building that somewhat resembled a stable. It was filled with tools and traps that rattled and clanked in the breeze. He unhooked Kiska and Rux, smiling widely as they jumped and pranced about, nipping at each other as they made their way into the workshop. After a moment, they took up their favorite spots on the floor inside, under the far workbench that ran along the back wall.
Garrin had long ago given up trying to get the split-tails to sleep in the cabin. Any time he tricked either of them into going inside, they would scratch and claw at the door furiously. Such behavior may have been cute when they were little, but now it would mean large scars along the bottom of the door and wall. Despite living with him, they still had their wild spirits about them.
Truth be told, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Garrin tossed the remaining half of the deer carcass onto the ground and gave a sharp whistle. Rux and Kiska came tearing out of the workshop, ripping and pulling apart the meat while Garrin took the other carcasses into the workshop to skin them.
The walls of his shop were lined with hooks and drawers for his tools. He had designed the space to be neat and efficient. The idea of an orderly shop, as pleasant and logical as it might be, had lasted only for a day or two after the shop was built. Tools and knives littered the work spaces. The benches were cluttered and the orderly hooks on the rear wall sat empty. He rummaged through a mess of tools, frowning until he finally came up with his favorite skinning knife. He pulled the black-handled knife up from the table and held the blade up to the light, inspecting the edge.
Despite years of use as a skinning knife, the edge was keen and sharp. The blade was as black as the handle, glinting in the light as Garrin turned it to the side. The trapper silently thanked the warrior he had gotten it from those many years ago in the Gelstung Range hundreds of miles to the east. He liked to think that even though the Tarthun fighter had been slain in battle by Garrin, perhaps the warrior’s spirit took pleasure in knowing his memory lived on, even if it was in a trapper’s workshop.
Garrin had only just started skinning the badger when Rux let out a low growl that caught his attention. Garrin set the knife down and casually wiped his hands on his apron as he stepped out to see a young brown bear pacing at the edge of the trees.
“Easy now,” Garrin said as he took his spear in hand. “He’s just a youngling, no need to tear his head off.”
Garrin pulled his apron up over his head and let it fall to the ground as he walked determinedly toward the young bear.
“You should be hibernating,” Garrin said flatly.
Kiska was quick to break out toward the side. Garrin made her freeze in place with a short whistle.
“Go back to your dinner. I’ll teach the bear to stay away.”
Kiska turned her black head and tilted it to the side as she locked her black eyes with Garrin’s. Garrin had to stamp the butt of his spear on the ground before the split-tail reluctantly obeyed.
Garrin turned back to the bear and saw the animal still pacing on the road just inside the tree line. The bear must have followed him from where he gutted the deer the day before. Whatever it was that had woken the animal, it was aware of its hunger now, and it wanted food. Garrin almost wanted to give a bit of meat to the bear, but he knew what that would do.
The bear stopped as the trapper approached. The brown animal pushed up to stand on its back legs and snorted, steam bursting into the air above its snout.
“Go on!” Garrin shouted as he waved the spear. “Get!”
The bear dropped down to its fore legs, its muscles quivering as it locked eyes with Garrin and opened its maw filled with ivory-colored teeth.
Garrin was unimpressed.
The trapper walked up to the bear and slapped it on the front of its snout with the flat side of the spear head. The bear flinched away and snorted again, shaking its head. Garrin threw his arms out wide and shouted loudly. Rux and Kiska added their voices, snarling and growling.
The bear realized he had wandered into an uneven fight. He turned and ran back down the road, his legs stomping the snowy ground as his back end bobbed up and down until he was out of sight.
Garrin stamped the butt end of his spear down and watched for several minutes, making sure the bear was properly chased off and not just regrouping. After he was satisfied, Garrin moved to a large tree nearby and marked it as an animal might. He moved to several spots near the road leading to his cabin until his bladder was empty. Kiska and Rux followed moments later, marking in exactly the same areas. Garrin wasn’t sure if his scent kept animals at bay, but the marking of a split-tail usually was enough to keep even the largest predators out of the area.
“Who wants a drink?” Garrin asked as he looked down to his split-tails. Kiska kept glancing over her shoulder at the forest, as if wishing the bear would return for a proper challenge. Rux bounded up beside Garrin and leaned her shoulder into his leg. “All right then, let’s go.”
The trapper glanced to his workshop, calculating the remaining hours of work he had skinning and dressing his catch. He knew that if he hurried, he just might make it before the end of the day and be able to prepare the skins for tanning, but he decided better to put off the work for tomorrow. A rushed skin never came out as good as one that was worked with careful attention.
Kiska meandered back to the front of the workshop and spun in a circle before laying down with her massive head on her front legs, staring up the road to where the bear had fled. Garrin knew she wouldn’t likely abandon her post. She might make off with a bit of extra meat for herself if he was in town too long, but at least no bear would get any of it.
Rux walked with Garrin through the snow down the four foot wide path to the town. Deep, frozen sled tracks were pressed into the snow. Garrin had made more frequent trips into town this year than years past, partly because this hunting season was more productive, and also because he had taken a shining to a certain lady who was working in the general store these days.
Just the thought of seeing her put a quicker bounce in Garrin’s step and the hint of a smile on his face. Rux bounded beside him along the road, ears up and head swiveling side to side, scanning for any motion at all.
Half way to town, Rux tore off to the left through the forest.