How It All Goes Down
- Meanwhile, at Fort Union, Fitzgerald is cheerfully taking over watch duty from Pig. Cheerfully? That's not typical…
- It turns out that Fitzgerald is planning to go AWOL and has been hiding a store of equipment, as well as a "pack of beaver pelts to trade downstream" (2.19.4).
- Fitzgerald has been prepping for this a long time, but rumors about Captain Henry moving the group to the abandoned Fort Manuel in Yellowstone made him get his butt in gear.
- We jump forward to see Captain Henry's reaction to this betrayal. He's not all that upset—he hated Fitzgerald, anyway.
- Suddenly, one of his men comes to the door: the trapping party was attacked, their horses were stolen, and Anderson is dead.
- With that, Henry decides to abandon Fort Union.