for some moments before he fell, staring at the water rolling out of that land far, far to the north—cursing the river that passed him by, just as so many seasons were now behind him.
Titus knew how that felt aiready.
Too much whiskey and too sound a thrashing—finally to crumple here into the shallow current at the edge of the muddy bank, here to drown. Never again to move. Dead drunk again.
And this time, dead.
Back and forth he rocked with the body. Then as the light ballooned in the east across the river, Titus struggled from under the weight. He nearly stumbled himself in the soft, giving mud as he got to his feet, began to drag the body out of the water.
Heaving, he brought Washburn up the bank a few yards with great exertion. Then collapsed himself beside the trapper once more. Shivering as he watched the sun continue its climb.
A new day. A little colder.
And now one friend less.
24
The Indian pony resisted him at first, not liking the nearness of that dead body. Maybe it was true what some folks said about animals sensing death more strongly than humans ever could.
As many years as he had worked around horses and hunted the creatures of the woods, Titus had to admit he really knew damned little about the beasts whose flesh he ate, the brutes he shoed and harnessed for Hysham Troost.
With a great struggle he at last draped Washburn’s body over his own shoulder, struggled to rise. Tied off to a tree, the pony sidestepped round the trunk, skittish and wide-eyed, nostrils taking the caliber of the dead man’s scent as it inched away until the hackamore was wrapped around the tree and the pony’s nose was snubbed right against the oak’s trunk. A final heave from Bass meant the frightened pony gave one last jostle, shivering beneath the deadweight.
“There, now,” he whispered to the animal, stroking its muzzle. “Last time you’ll ever carry him. Easy, easy— just ease down, girl. This here’s the last ride for Isaac Washburn.”
Bass had returned to the livery after the sun’s orange orb had peeled itself fully off the far side of the river. Troost was already in for the day, laying out the first of the harness on his workbench, readying it for a good soaping as Titus trudged past without a word.
Perhaps it was the pain written on the young man’s face and nothing more that had compelled Troost not to utter a word. Silently he had watched Bass move by on his special purpose, taking down a long braided horsehair hackamore from one of the stable posts without slowing a step. Out in the paddock behind the barn where Troost fed boscage to his oxen, he had caught up the reluctant pony, brought it among the stables, then latched the half door. Tying the animal beside the opening to his cell, Titus had reappeared with Washburn’s old sleeping blankets, folding it over the pony’s back.
Past Troost he had trudged, again without a word from either one of them. Near the wide double doors that fronted onto Third Street, Titus had taken down one of the mucking shovels hanging from a peg near the last stall. From the moment he had entered the livery, he had barely touched the blacksmith with his eyes. Still, through it all, he could feel Hysham’s wondering, curious stare strike him dead center between his shoulder blades as Bass finally moved out of shadow and into the sunshine splashing St. Louis on that morning. He had led the pony down to the riverbank.
With the dripping, muddy corpse finally draped over the animal’s back, Titus headed downriver. A mile. Another. Then two more as he sought out a place far enough from settlement, from walls of wood or stone, far enough from the walls of too many people. Eventually he stopped in a small glade and tied the pony to one of the trees that ringed the meadow. Leaves rustled in the morning breeze above him as he dragged the body from the animal’s back. It reflexively backed away from Isaac Washburn, as far as the hackamore would allow it. Snorting as it sidestepped, on the far side of the tree, the pony bent its head to graze among spring’s tall grass.
For some time Bass walked over every foot of that glade, then decided on a place before returning to the tree, where he took up that worn and rusted shovel he would now use to scratch at the thick carpet of green, marking out a rectangle wide enough, long enough, for the trapper. The rain-soaked earth gave easily beneath his labor, piling the moist, dark soil in a mound beside the deepening hole where he worked. Man against the ground, forcing the earth to open itself, give of itself, just wide enough for man’s final pillow.
This reminded him of farming. Of Thaddeus and the others back yonder in Boone County. Slashing their shares down through the earth, forcing the soil open—demanding it give what they wanted most. Like a man prying open a reluctant woman’s legs until she at last gives herself to him, where he can plant his seed—there in her moistness so that it too would grow.
But this was different, he convinced himself. This was returning something … someone … to the soil. No, he was not taking anything from the earth. This completion of the circle was something altogether different.
Down, down, down into the ground he sweated, removing first his coat, and later his shirt—those taut, lean muscles and sinews aching before he tossed out the shovel and heaved himself out of that long black hole punched out of the deep emerald green of the meadow. There in the shade, among the roots of that big elm tree. He turned, inspecting his work. Deep enough for him to stand up to his armpits.
After spreading the two blankets upon the grass and gently laying out the body, Bass carefully draped the worn and greasy wool over Washburn’s face for the last time.
“It’s time, Isaac,” he sighed in a whisper.
Beside the hole he laid Washburn, then descended into the grave once again. Bracing himself against the side, Bass dragged the body into his arms, slowly lowering Isaac to the bottom. He quickly scrambled out once he sensed the sun inching itself ever higher, arching its way upward across the sky, warming the air. Now he sweated even more as he stabbed that mound of fresh earth, shoveling it back atop those old blankets with the solemn thump of falling sod.
“Damn you, Isaac—you wanted that spree of your’n more’n you wanted me to be your friend,” Titus hurled his words down at the form wrapped in the blankets. Clod by clod, the soil spilled back into the hole.
“Went out after your whiskey, figuring it would be a better friend than I ever could make you,” he growled as he hunched into his work, stung by his sweat, blinded by his tears.
“Not any different’n that ol’ man Glass, was you? All’s said and done—just like him you give up on folks what cared something for you. Just look at you now!” he sobbed.
Flinging the clumps of earth into that yawning pit, shovel by shovel until he was drenched with sweat, itching at the black earth smeared in great streaks across his heaving chest, tracked with tears over his cheeks, striped in beaded ribbons on his forehead. Wiping the stinging salt from his eyes, he blinked, then kept on hurling the last of that dark earth atop what remained of Isaac Washburn.
Patting the last shovelful down on that long black mound, he shuddered, resting his hands across the hickory handle. Then gazed about at the sunlit meadow he had chosen. Suddenly aware of the wildflowers. Spring’s gift to the land.
Clump after clump he speared up with the old shovel, carrying them tenderly back to the grave, there to replant each bouquet with his bare hands, scratching out each hole with his fingers until that long black mound lay ablaze with color.
“These here orange ones are for the sunsets in them mountains—the ones you told me about, Isaac,” he said little above a whisper, his dirty, black-caked fingers touching the soft velvet of the brilliant petals.
“And these red ones—like them hills you said the Powder River called its home. The blue’uns for the sky out yonder—the sky you told me brushes them mountains you wanted to see again so bad.”
Titus swiped a grimy finger below each eye as tears began to spill across his cheeks.
“And the yellow ones, Isaac. Yellow, just as bright as that grass on the prerra you said looked like a carpet of gold—where a man can find him the buffalo ground. I put them yellow ones here special.”
For the longest time Bass sat there in the shade of the tree sheltering that spot. Watching the flowers nod
