David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [87]
For weeks he roamed far and wide and periodically returned home with field-dressed game to be put up for consumption during the winter, although by Crockett’s own accounts his offspring and hired men devoured the fresh meat as fast as he packed it back to the cabin. By mid-December, Crockett was still gathering “wild meat” when he discovered that he was running out of gunpowder. “I had none either to fire Christmass [sic] guns, which is very common in that country, or to hunt with.”15 He remembered that one of brothers-in-law had agreed to store an extra keg of powder for him and was holding it at his cabin, only about six miles west on the opposite side of Rutherford’s Fork of the Obion.
“There had just been another of Noah’s freshes, and the low-grounds were flooded all over with water,” Crockett recalled. “I know’d the stream was at least a mile wide which I would have to cross, as the water was from hill to hill, and yet I determined to go over in some way or other, so as to get my powder. I told this to my wife, and she immediately opposed it with all her might. I still insisted, telling her we had no powder from Christmass [sic], and, worse than all, we were out of meat. She said, we had as well starve as for me to freeze to death or get drowned, and one or the other was certain if I attempted to go.”16
Crockett politely listened to Betsy and then, as always, went ahead. He put on his moccasins and woolen wrappers, tied up a bundle of extra clothes and extra pair of shoes, and started out for his powder. The snow was about four inches deep when he left, and by the time he reached the river, only about a quarter of a mile from the cabin, it looked like an ocean. Crockett waded into the swollen river and started to make his way, using logs whenever possible to cross deep spots. At times he was in waist-deep water, and it did not take long before he had little feeling in his legs and feet. When he attempted to cross another slough on a log he fell into icy water up to his head but somehow managed to keep his dry clothes and rifle above the surface. He got to the other side, put on his dry clothing, and eventually made his way to his brother-in-law’s cabin.
I got there late in the evening, and he was much astonished at seeing me at such a time. I staid all night, and the next morning was most piercing cold, and so they persuaded me not to go home that day. I agreed, and turned out and killed him two deer; but the weather still got worse and colder, instead of better. I staid that night, and in the morning they still insisted I couldn’t get home. I knowed the water would be frozen over, but not hard enough to bear me, and so I agreed to stay that day. I went out hunting again, and pursued a big he-bear all day, but didn’t kill him. The next morning was bitter cold, but I knowed my family was without meat, and I determined to get home to them, or die a-trying.
Crockett picked up his powder keg and hunting tools and left. When he reached the water, it was a sheet of ice as far as he could see. He carefully stepped into the freezing river. The combination of frigid air and icy water took his breath away, but he plodded ahead, perhaps wondering if he had made the right decision. Just as he started walking, the thinner ice along the bank broke through. Although shivering and numbed, Crockett plodded forward, using his tomahawk to break up the ice in his path until he reached a place where the ice was thick enough to hold him. He pulled himself out of the stream and his soaked buckskins immediately turned to ice. After walking a short way, the ice broke again, and the swiftness of the current was so fast