The Trapper and the Brave, Part Ii
He shrugged and said,”If you’ve no home
I guess you could stay for a while.
But you will have to learn the traps,
and that means many cold miles.”
Bill answered back, between fast bites,
“I’ll work hard if it means I don’t starve!”
Timlin answered,”I guess we’ll see,
when you’re done feed the dogs in the yard.”
Bill quickly learned the trapper’s trade,
to Timlin’s pleasant surprise,
picked it up quick, quick enough that
they even could work on a new line.
Come spring Timlin built a new room
on the back of the small cabin,
the next winter, with new trap lines,
they doubled the coin they brought in.
This went on for many years,
Bill occasionally going to town,
he’d have some fun with girls and booze,
but soon enough was back on the ground.
Until in the early thirties
the old trapper acquired a chill,
his hair was now as white as snow,
he could no longer fight off the ills.
Bill buried him on a hillside
amidst the vast, endless taiga,
Timlin had left him all his land,
the cabin was now his by law.
Now Timlin was the loner type,
but that was not always Bill’s view,
so he took a working girl for wife,
and she gave him cute daughters, two.
He kept working for winter pelts
until one day in fifty-three,
found a cheechako lost in the woods
and grandson, that fool was me!
I’d gone up to the last frontier
seeking adventure I couldn’t get,
instead all I ended up doing
was running up big gambling debts.
The debt got me chased out of town,
was soon lost in endless fir trees,
had Bill not found me fumbling about
I would’ve been put on deep-freeze.
Maybe he saw himself in me,
honestly, I don’t really know,
but he wasn’t the type to let me die,
so to this cabin we did go.
It was a bit larger than before,
he’d built it into a proper house,
little did I know, going in
that I never really would get out.
You see that day Bill didn’t just
happen to save my young life,
though neither of us knew it yet
he introduced me to my wife!
His youngest daughter Maryanne
captured my soul at the first glance,
one of those girls who shakes your cage
and replaces all other plans.
So I stayed with Bill, and learned the traps,
helped him as he’d helped Timlin before,
I grew closer to your grandmother
who even Bill could see I adored.
And when she agreed to marry me
I admit I was truly surprised,
to say yes to a poor, young fool…
it was the break of a lifetime.
CONCLUDES IN PART III...
Copyright ©
David Welch
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