“He didn’t shoot Bridger?” Bass asked anxiously.
“Nope. He yest turned to the rest of us an’ said, ‘The boy was yest a pup. Didn’t know no better. Fitzgerald’s the scalp I want.’ That’s when Bridger started shakin’, tremblin’ yest like a wet pup, tears come to his eyes, him swearin’ he’d never let a man down ever again.”
“I’ll be damned,” Titus exclaimed almost under his breath, then poked more of the steel into the coals to heat.
“Glass tol’t us all how he was givin’ life fer life. Yest the way the Almighty Above give him his life back or somethin’ such. He wasn’t gonna take Bridger’s life—but he was gonna run down Fitz. Claimed the Almighty Above told him vengeance would be his.”
“How’d he come to get from the Grand River all the way to where you was winterin’ with Henry?”
“He crawled.”
“C-crawled?”
“Man gets chewed up bad as he was by a grizz … he’s bound to have ter crawl. Tol’t us all the story of it that winter night arter he’d stuffed his meatbag full of venison. Said he started out on his belly, Glass did. Some weeks later got up on his hands an’ one leg, dragging the other leg what the sow chewed up so bad. Maggots wrigglin’ down in his wounds—crawlin’ in an’ out, eatin’ all the p’isen out—flies buzzin’ round him something awful as he crawled on down our backtrail, foot by foot.”
“Hang on there—you said he took your backtrail? Here I thought you said he come up to Henry’s fort that winter.”
“He did get up to that post, but—savvy as he was—first off Glass pointed his nose for Fort Kioway. Knowed it were closer. Still some three hunnert miles or so,” Washburn answered, undisguised wonder a’shine in his eyes. “When ol’ Hugh made it to Kioway, said he talked hisself into a new outfit an’ fetched him a ride on a traders’ boat going north.”
“Past them troublemaking Rees?”
“Ain’t you the smart one now, Titus?” Isaac exclaimed. “That’s right: already Glass knowed better’n to try to poke his way on by such river niggers—so yest downriver from them villages, Glass had them traders put over and he went ashore, making overland. Kept to the brush and the timber, and what you know? It weren’t long afore he heard the fight boomin’ behin’t him as them Rees jumped those traders. He found a hidey-hole and laid low. An’ when the dust settled down, Glass turned back—found all those fellers on the boat was wiped out.”
Titus dragged the steel from the fire, laying the glowing red strap over the horn on his anvil, fixing to begin hammering a bend into the spring steel. “Glass found hisself alone again?”
“Damn sure was. But that ornery hivernant run right onto some Mandans what knew better’n to jump ary a white man this time. L’arn’t their lesson from us’ns with Henry. Them Mandans took Glass’s ol’ bones on upriver to their villages. An’ from thar’ he pushed on alone, walkin’ up the Missouri to reach our winter digs on foot. Hate’s a meal what can sure keep a man warm, no matter how cold the storm is, Titus.”
Bass shuddered involuntarily as something slipped down the length of his spine—little matter how he sweated with his exertions there beside the glowing forge. He asked, “Now that he forgive Bridger, Glass was still dead set on finding this Fitzgerald?”
“Come mornin’, he told us—he was leavin’ off again. Wild-eyed, the ol’ man was. Said he’d nursed himself back to bein’ strong, hearin’ the voice of the Almighty inside his head ever’ foot of the way—that voice sayin’ vengeance would be his. Fitz would be delivered up to his hand. Glass knowed he had God’s word on it an’ it was meant to be.”
“So he up an’ took off the very next morning?”
“Soon as that storm broke, that ol’ man disappeared. But he didn’t go alone: three others told Henry they figured to go with him on that hunt for Fitz. Bound and determined to find the man truly at fault for Glass being left to die in the wilderness ’thout no possibles nor truck.”
After a long silence from the old trapper, Bass looked up from his work with the hammer. Washburn was staring at him.
“Titus, I was one of them three.”
“You went with Glass to hunt the man down?”
With a nod Isaac continued. “We marched west on foot—nary a one of us had a animal to ride, only one ribby horse Henry let us have for packing our blankets and plunder. We tramped up the Yallerstone to the mouth of the Powder, then turned south up the Powder. Far ’nough up toward the headwaters of the Powder we struck out south, making for the Platte. Leastways, that’s what river Glass figgered it had to be when we finally run onto it. Wasn’t long afore the ol’ man said if we kept on trampin’ east, the closer we’d come to Pawnee country.”
“Same Injuns Glass’d spent him some time with, right?”
“An’ run off from—so he sure didn’t wanna run into those folks again,” Washburn answered. “But look an’ behol’t! We run smack-dab into a big war party of Arikara instead! Likely they was wanderin’ south, out looking for to steal some horses from the ’Rapaho or Siouxs, any band them river niggers hoped to find down there in that kentry. Wasn’t s’posed to run onto them the way we was going, Glass said. But there them red niggers was.”
Bass leaned close, enthralled and captivated with every new twist in the story. “What became of you and them Rees you bumped into?”
“A fight of it—that’s what. They kill’t two of us, right off. Shot me up a li’l”—Isaac pointed to his left arm —“an’ kill’t our only horse. Me an’ Glass, we jumped down into a small stream slick with ice, wading on down hugging the bank and hangin’ back in them bare willers real close—yest like they was a woman’s soft breast. Weren’t long before we found us a hole in that bank to hide in, yest big enough for our ol’ bones to scrunch up in—it bein’ close to low-water time and the beaver bein’ moved on, leaving that hole behin’t for us the way they done. Down in that stream them Rees damn well couldn’t find ’em no tracks of the two white men got away. We pulled in some wilier behin’t us, to cover up the mouth of that hidey-hole, an’ laid thar’, holdin’ our wind. Up an’ down the crik above us Injuns hooted an’ hollered fer the better part of that arternoon afore we heard ’em pull off an’ leave. ’Long torst the sun goin’ down we heard ’em screeching in glee off upriver. Likely they was workin’ over them two other fellers started out with us from Henry’s post.”
“Who was they?”
“Never knowed their Christian names—damn me,” Washburn admitted, wagging his head dolefully. “Likely them boys had ’em families, Glass said that night when it was gettin’ dark. That was the very fust thing he said ever’ since’t we crawled into that hole too. An’ it were the last thing he ever said about them two, from thar’ on out. Arter slap-dark we finally dared stick our heads out an’ started walking.”
“Where the hell you head to then?” Titus asked, driving the hammer down hard, sending fireflies of sparks from the heated metal as it bent around the anvil’s horn.
“Ol’ Hugh claimed he felt right pert. Claimed this time he had him his gun and his fixin’s. Not like the last time he’d been left to push through Injun kentry after Fitz run off with ever’thing Glass owned. It gave me the willers ’cause he kept saying, over an’ over: ‘’Sides, us keepin’ our ha’r in that fix is yest ’nother sign God’s watching over me—making sure I track down Fitz, the one what left me fer dead.’”
“Bet you fellas covered some ground that night,” Bass said eagerly. “Sleep all day?”
Isaac nodded. “Found us some cover come sunup. Laid low till the night come round again. Went on like that, night arter night—making ourselves a hidey-hole ever’ day. That ol’ man was some walker, he was. Had him a big chest he could fill up with that cold winter air, strong legs he kept a’movin. He was one coon downright made for walking. Me? I was a man made for
“So where’d you two light out for?”
“Eventual we left the Platte, struck out overland, making for Fort Kioway again. I turned to Ol’ Glass. ‘How far you make it from here?’ asks I. ‘More’n two hunnert miles,’ says he. ‘Closer to three hunnert likely.’ I scratched my head, looked off into that night sky, darker’n the belly of your own grave, I s’pose. So I up an’ asks him, ‘Ain’t Atkinson closer? Maybe by half?’ He yest looked at me, no smile, no nothin’. ‘Shore is,’ Glass said. ‘We’ll go thar’ … if’n you got balls big enough to walk with me through Pawnee kentry. Them niggers be wintered up all ’long the Platte this time of year. Best you recollect I runned off from the Pawnee fer a damn good reason, Isaac.’”
When Washburn paused in moving his story along, Bass grew impatient and inquired, “Which way you decide to go?”
