Trapper Dan's Mammoth, Part I

I. Trapper Dan Slocumb sat on down in the small Whitehorse café. The gold rush gone, ten years now, he’d turned to furs to make his pay. That day he spotted Red Billings, carving away at a large tusk, Much too big to ever be ivory from even the greatest walrus. He also wore what looked to be a brand new buffalo coat, but the hair on it was reddish-brown, and so damn long that it flowed! “Wherever did you get that?” the trapper went on to ask. Red said,”Took it from a frozen Indian, six days west, by a small pass. “I was trapping nearby looking for an untouched source of hides, When I found a man lying dead, fallen motionless, on his side. “I figured he wouldn’t need them, so I helped myself, you see. I made this coat, sold the rest, but held on to the ivory.” Dan he sat, lost deep in thought, contemplating Red’s crazy tale. That hide look like a big windfall, better than trapping to no avail. Six days west was manageable, and his sled and dogs could zoom, that’s when the half-breed Kloatsultshik spoke up from across the room. “Slocumb, don’t go being foolish, for my mother’s people tell, of a place one week west of here, filled with great beasts from hell. “Billings is lucky to be breathing, if he traveled near that pass, for in the language of my mother it’s named ‘The Valley That Trumpets Death.’” Red laughed and dismissed him, “That’s all superstitious nonsense.” And the thoughts of Dan only say visions of dollars and of cents... CONTINUES IN PART II.