The Saga of Harlan Waugh (The Mountain Men) Read Online Free PDF Page B

aware that he was hazily looking through one eye that was still full of blood. It would be another two weeks before that eye would clear enough to see.
    He realized it was hard to smile or frown due to the damage done to his face by the grizzly’s tearing, six-inch-long front claws. Trying to reach his face, he discovered that his left arm was sore as a boil and would not work. He made an attempt with his other arm and felt a hand grabbing it and stopping him from reaching those damaged places on his head and face.
    “Welcome back from the spirit world,” came the reassuring voice of Big Eagle.
    “Is he gonna be all right?” said another worried voice, that of Winter Hawk in his broken English.
    “Yes, he will be fine, but not as good looking as he once was,” said Big Eagle.
    “Are you hungry?” Big Eagle asked Harlan.
    Realizing he was famished, Harlan roared out that he was starved and then regretted his animated talking and movement as the pain returned with a rush like the maddened grizzly. Soon, Big Eagle was spooning the best-tasting thick onion-and-meat soup that he had ever eaten into his mouth. After his third bowl, Harlan asked, “What is this? It’s great!”
    “Soup from that old griz’ you tangled with back there at the beaver dam many days ago,” replied Big Eagle with a pleased grin.
    That struck Harlan as funny. The bear had come to kill and eat him, and now their fortunes had been reversed. Harlan smiled and then started to laugh, only to regret it as he did. His face burned and hurt like hell, as did his shoulder, with any kind of movement. The top of his head, on the other hand, was totally numb. That he couldn’t quite figure out...
     
     
    ***
     
    A week later a wobbly Harlan was on his feet, and what a surprise was in store for him. In the looking glass from the cabin stores, he saw himself for the first time since he and the grizzly had “danced.”
    His scalp had been almost tom off but had been sewn back on with a needle and thread. It was swollen and had taken on many shades of color, much hair had fallen out, and he smelled like hell, partly from putrefaction and partly from the evil-smelling poultice Big Eagle had squashed all over the damaged areas. His left eyebrow had been almost completely removed but sewn back as well and, aside from being bright red with infection around the edges, appeared to be healing.
    His left shoulder was another matter. It had four large canine-tooth holes, two in the front and two in the back, driven deeply to the bone. It was leaking green-and-yellow pus, and he could not move it at all due to its stiffness. In short, he was alive but in one hell of a stinking mess.
    But that wasn’t his biggest surprise. After receiving an arrow in the head from Big Eagle, the bear had finally dropped Harlan. Then it had turned and tried to kill Big Eagle. However, it had run headlong into a one-ounce slug of lead fired by Big Eagle from Harlan’s Hawken, which he had picked up off the ground under the grizzly’s very feet. The slug had torn through the bear’s heart and spine and eventually landed him in the cooking pot.
    The two boys brought Harlan back to the camp and fixed him up as best as they could with the needle and thread they found in the cabin stores. Then they skinned out the bear, cut him into quarters, and wrestled him back to camp for the huge meat supply he offered. As if that were not enough effort at their young ages, they also ran the rest of the trap-line and brought the beaver they caught back for processing.
    In fact, the whole time Harlan had been out, they had cared for him and run the trap-line as well. The boys had caught and processed seventy-four beaver in the two weeks Harlan had been under the weather or out of it completely! That did not include the great bear’s dressed hide, which now adorned the cabin wall and stretched partly onto the roof. That had been one big and pissed-off bear—a ten-footer, he later discovered.
    It