striking the tiniest of branches that could deflect it just enough to miss his target. He let out half his breath, held it, and brought the front blade down on the dark and narrow fork in the branch where he had seen the tail flick in the wind.
No, he told himself. If he shot the critter from this direction, there wouldn’t be much meat left at all.
Gingerly stepping to the left as quietly as the dry leaves allowed him, Titus inched around the base of the trunk, keeping his eyes moving to the ground before he set each foot down, then to that fork in the branches. Finally he allowed himself to take another breath, and with it he came to a stop. There in the dimming light he thought he could make out the tail curving back on itself, saw where the tail root attached to the shadow of the body, and at the far end, some of the squirrel’s head.
If he could make a head shot, none of the best meat would be ruined. Sighting in on that part of the shadow, Titus squeezed off his shot before any more light drained from the sky.
For an instant the bright flare of the pan flash-blinded him. As the roar of the flintlock was swallowed by the deep woods, he blinked, inching forward, intent on the ground blanketed with fallen leaves. His attention was drawn by a rustle.
The squirrel thrashed among the dried leaves as he came up and knelt over it. He had missed its head, but by striking the limb it sat on, had stunned the animal out of its hiding place. Taking his knife from his belt, he held it by the blade and brought the antler handle down on the squirrel’s head with a crack.
As he picked up the plump squirrel, Titus glanced into the tree. Too dark to look for any bark knocked loose from the branch above him. It didn’t matter really, he thought. For certain it wasn’t good shooting that got him the squirrel this time. Perhaps the forest itself had given one of its own to feed him.
“Thankee,” he said softly, looking around him.
As good a place as any, he determined. Might as well make himself comfortable right here.
After clearing a spot beneath the tree and striking a fire, Titus pulled out his tiny kettle and retraced his steps back through the trees until he found the narrow trickle of water he had passed after leaving the adamantine ledge. He drank long and slow after dipping the kettle into the oozing flow. Then he waited while the kettle filled a second time before returning to his fire.
There he began skinning his supper, his mouth already beginning to water, anticipating the taste of meat. Cutting off head, tail, and paws, he slit the squirrel up the belly, opening it up to gut it. That done, he selected a long tree limb, as big around as two of his fingers, to skewer his supper. Shoving one end of the limb into the ground so that the squirrel could sizzle over the low flames, Titus turned to preparing his bed as the night wind hooted through the skeletal trees, making him feel all the colder.
Kicking over piles of leaves from some of the surrounding trees, he made himself quite a mound near his fire. Turning the squirrel once, he returned to collecting. With enough of them spread out to make for a soft and deep pallet, he flung down his thin blanket. Then Titus settled cross-legged at the fire and sighed. Cold as it might be tonight, he vowed he would not allow the sounds of the forest, the wind, even the cold itself to keep him from sleeping as they had last night. If he were going to make it downriver, even as far as Louisville, he was simply going to have to master what it took for a frontiersman to be at home in the forest.
He turned the squirrel over the flames, then probed at the browning flesh with a finger and sighed, his thoughts suddenly on Levi Gamble. How he wanted one day soon to be as sure a backwoodsman as Levi was already. Why, he knew he was nearly as good a shot, likely might even be better than Gamble soon enough. Still, he remembered Levi’s words that there was more to the life Titus Bass hankered to lead than being a good shot.
As darkness dripped down from the leafless branches overhead, the wind came up. And with it the smell of rain. Gazing up at the sky, he could see no more than a small patch of stars off to the southeast. Chances were there’d be wet weather by morning. Just one more thing he’d have to learn to deal with if he was going to make it downriver as far as Louisville, where he figured a man might give himself a new stake in life.
Folks talked about the place. Said it was where a young man could make a go of things. The whole area was opening up. That sense of boom and bustle appealed to him more than most anything right there and then. Second only to the aroma wafting off that squirrel. Titus fed a limb into the fire now and then, and from time to time juices plopped into the flames, each drop sizzling, every sizzle causing his mouth to water all the more until he knew he couldn’t wait any longer.
Scrambling onto his knees, he pulled out his knife and sliced free a thin sliver along the backstrap. Stuffing it into his mouth, Titus half closed his eyes, savoring this taste of red meat. Licking his lips, he freed another sliver of meat, then washed it down with the cold water.
Before he realized, he was squatting beside nothing more than glowing embers, gnawing the last tiny morsels from the squirrel’s scrawny bones in the dim ruby light as his fire died. Sucking the final drops of grease from his fingers, he took one last drink and stood, moving off a few yards to find a place where he could sprinkle the forest floor in the cold and dark that were his only companions again this night.
Returning to his little camp, he fed the embers a few twigs until they caught, then laid on some thicker limbs for the first part of the night. That done, he scooted back onto his blanket and lay down, dragging his pouch and rifle in alongside him. After pulling half of the blanket over himself, Titus scooped leaves over his feet, then his legs, and finally covered his torso. Just as thick as he could burrow himself beneath.
For a long time Titus cradled the rifle in his arms, the lock protected between his legs, watching the flames and listening to the forest around him, reminded of the sputter and crackle of a limekiln fire back home. How something so simple as a sound aroused his reverie. He wondered what Amy was about at that moment. Did she even know he had taken off? Was she missing him, or had she already made designs on some other young fellow?
And then he thought on his mam, remembering how the pumpkins grew untended among the tall stalks of corn. Licking his lips, Titus tried to remember the taste of his mother’s pumpkin butter and pumpkin molasses boiled down in the fall.
The first good cold snap like this every autumn brought on the hog killing, the menfolk butchering those animals fattened all year on cane roots and mast made of beechnuts, acorns, and chestnuts. Hogs were knocked in the head with a maul, their throats quickly slashed, and then hauled up on pulleys lashed to a strong tree limb for proper bleeding. Below the gently swinging creatures mam always caught as much of it as possible in cherrywood pails and churns to make the rich blood pudding she would stuff into a cleaned intestine and smoke over green hickory chips in the smokehouse. He was almost able to taste it—served under a thick white gravy with yellow hominy on the side. Memories laden with the remembrance of sausage strong with red pepper and sage, sousemeat or headcheese.
Yes, on the frontier October came to be known as killing weather.
But with, the remembrance he began for the first time to worry about her, sensing some remorse for the worry he was likely causing her. But no remorse for his loss of Amy. No, his only regret in not turning back was his mam, and all the anxious concern he must likely be causing her.
A beat of wings passed over his head with a startling rush as he closed his eyes, so weary. The great-headed owl, prowling the forest.
Titus wondered if his mam had stood there at the front of her porch across those past two days—just the way she had when he was so much younger. Calling out his name.
Calling him home.
He came awake in the morning slowly, smelling the heady fragrance of damp, loamy earth strong in his nostrils.
A time or two before he opened his eyes for good, Titus heard the rain’s patter softly through the trees. A gentle, cold, soaking rain, most likely. At least he thought so from its soft cadence against the stiff parchment of the maple and gum leaves he had pulled in over himself, burrowing down like a deer mouse in its snug little hole.
Warm it was in here. A damned sight better than the night before, he said to himself as he decided to open his eyes for good and not drift off to sleep. The irregular concert of misty drops had tapered off, and the forest fell quiet. He shifted his hip, making it more comfortable on a new spot among the thick pallet of leaves, and curled his legs up within the blanket.
No need in rushing on his way. Warm as he was. Comfortable too. Almost as soft as his grass tick back at home. Except … it wasn’t home no more.
