Trapper Dan's Mammoth Poem by David Welch

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 saw
visions of dollars and of cents.

II.
Through long hills and dense forest,
Slocumb's dogs pulled the sleigh.
Faint traces of Red Billing's trail
guided Dan along the way.

He found the frozen Indian,
torn apart by many scavengers.
He said then a silent prayer,
since he couldn't bury him in frozen dirt.

Another day of searching long,
and by a stream he found, at last,
a small gap in a long ridge,
he stood before the small pass.

It was a very narrow route,
quite easy for a man to miss,
shrouded by a forest of spruce
and the weight of clinging mists.

He worked through the route slowly,
moving the dogs around boulders.
Into a long and narrow valley,
Dan and his huskies soldiered.

The valley seemed like any other,
as he moved slowly through the glades,
with only the sound of the runners
breaking the silence in any way.

He came into a meadowed spot,
on the south side of a ledge.
One hundred feet it fell away,
to a churning river that leapt its bed.

As he looked down a cracking sound
arose from the woods' far side.
Then a piercing wail erupted loud,
echoing both far and wide.

A massive red-brown head emerged,
then a body impossible large!
Huge tusks spiraled towards him,
and the great beast launched a charge.

Dan froze in place, not believing
that an elephant could live in snow.
No wait—a mammoth! That was what
stood faced before him as a foe.

Dan grabbed his trusty Winchester
and dove away from the sled.
The mammoth speared it swiftly,
and both the dogs and sled lifted.

With a toss of its huge head,
dogs and sled flew off the ledge.
Enraged, Dan let go with him gun,
seven rounds in the beast's head.

But then to his great horror,
the mammoth turned to him.
Bloodied, but not badly hurt,
with a trumpet, it came charging…

III.
Dan found himself between
the angry mammoth and the cliff.
He had no choice but to retreat,
though the fall his flesh would rip.

Then about six feet down he saw,
a tree growing out of the wall,
at a slanting angle he could catch,
so Trapper Dan let himself fall.

He snagged the trunk and hung,
his legs dangling free in space.
Above the angry mammoth tried,
but could not check's it pace.

An animal so very large
can't always halt in a shot spell.
Momentum carried him clear off,
and a hundred feet he fell.

Dan scrambled back upwards,
then looked down upon the stream.
He wanted to skin the giant beast,
but couldn't move it without a team!

And emerging on the river's far side,
one hundred long feet below,
Three more mammoths did appear,
and send up a mournful bellow.

Dan just sighed and shook his head,
deciding right then and there,
that he was not going to risk anymore
for a pelt of mammoth hair...

Twas two weeks back without dogs,
and he stopped two days to hunt.
He arrived at Whitehorse exhausted,
consumed by an angry funk.

He walked into the small café
and found Kloatsultshik eating.
Dan said, "I Should've listened, my friend,
and saved myself the beating."

That was the last he ever trapped,
he and Kloatsultshik partnered up to buy
the small café and a mining stake,
running their businesses side-by-side.

And in all the years that followed,
whenever people spoke of trekking west,
Dan warned them off of the small pass,
of The Valley That Trumpets Death.