Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides

his life.
    Chouinard, on the other hand, was seriously injured. The lead ball from Carson’s single-shot pistol had ripped through the Frenchman’s right hand and blown away his thumb. Carson went for another pistol to finish him off, but Chouinard, gingerly holding his maimed appendage, begged for his life. In his dictated autobiography, Carson leaves the drama frustratingly open-ended, telling us only that the camp “had no more bother with this bully Frenchman.” Some versions of the story have it that Chouinard later died of his wound—as a result of gangrene, perhaps—while others suggest Carson in fact killed Chouinard with a second shot.
    The duel became one of the most famous incidents in Carson’s life and made him renowned among the mountain men; but in many ways it was uncharacteristic of him. Although he had a lightning temper, Carson was ordinarily a much more calculating risk-taker who certainly knew enough to back out of a fight so obviously fueled by alcohol. Perhaps the incident can be explained by Carson’s youth, or by his desire to prove himself among the grizzled fraternity of trappers, or by some chivalric desire to avenge Chouinard’s insults to Singing Grass. Whatever the case, the whole hot affair was an aberration for him. He survived less by skill than by thin luck. A newspaper writer said his fight with Chouinard was “the only serious personal quarrel of Kit Carson’s life.” Certainly Carson had no regrets. Years later a close friend said: “He was pleased with himself for doing it.”

    Perhaps the satisfaction had more to do with the romance that blossomed in the incident’s aftermath. Now he could pursue Singing Grass in earnest. He asked her father, Running Around, for her hand and offered a “bride price” of three mules and a new gun. The wedding, probably the following year, was a traditional Arapaho ceremony held in her father’s tepee. The ritual was complete when Running Around threw a blanket over the couple and gave his blessing. There was a feast and then the Arapaho relatives erected a tepee for the newlyweds. If Carson followed the rest of the Arapaho custom, then he did not immediately consummate the marriage; he and his bride would have slept in the same bed, but for several weeks she would have worn a tight rope cinched about her waist and loins—a chastity belt of sorts—until their probationary period was over.
    By most accounts the marriage was a happy one, although we know very few intimate details since Carson neglected even to mention Singing Grass in his memoirs. With certainty, it can be said that the marriage was more than a casual “squaw arrangement.” Singing Grass was in every respect his wife. They followed the Arapaho traditions and lived with the tribe’s blessing. Singing Grass was his first love, and Carson adored her.
    Arapaho relatives told author Stanley Vestal, who spent months interviewing among her band in the 1920s, that Singing Grass was highly regarded within the tribe—“a good girl, a good housewife, and good to look at.” Carson learned to speak the strange and sonorous language of the Arapaho, an Algonquin tongue whose “broad vowels, soft liquids, and smooth diphthongs” made it so beautiful, according to Vestal, “that Indians of other tribes preferred to sing Arapaho songs even though they could not understand the words.” The Arapaho were also celebrated for their intricate beadwork, and under his wife’s careful stitching hand, Carson’s clothes—his buckskins, his moccasins, his tobacco pouch and saddlebags—began to take on shiny new patterns of adornment.
    With his Arapaho bride following him whenever she could, Carson trapped for two seasons with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and then signed on with Jim Bridger’s brigades, working the upper Yellowstone, the Powder, and the Big Horn. During these years he moved incessantly throughout present-day Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. Trapping gave him,