For only a moment did he stop, parting the brush with a hand and the long fullstock rifle, peering upstream and down for some glimpse of the Indian pony. Squinting against the harsh sunlight glittering from the frothy, muddy surface, Bass could not find a clue to what happened to the horse … then he heard the distant whinny. His attention snapped back to the packmare far, far downstream now.
Through the brush that clawed at his face and the backs of his hands, raking his bare white flesh … in and out of the thick, soggy mud that relentlessly pulled at each one of his feet, dragging each foot out with a sucking sound as he struggled on, Titus hurried despite the strain ing wheeze in his chest, the terrible, fiery pain in his weakening legs. He heard the packmare cry out again.
No more could he see her, desperately fearing she had whinnied that one last time before the river had conquered her final shred of strength and pulled her under. All that weight in those packs. And she already so old.
But perhaps he could … dare he hope? Trusting to nothing but luck? Maybe he would find her carcass snagged on some river debris downstream and from the packs take what he needed to somehow survive in this open, endless, unforgiving land. He pushed on through the brush that clawed bloody welts along every inch of his flesh—downriver, downriver …
When at last he spotted her, the mare lay with her rump still in the river. One side of her packs had torn loose, the ropes floating on the Platte’s surface like leafless grapevine. Sensing the coming of even greater despair, Titus told himself that at least he had some of his plunder. No animals, but he wouldn’t be entirely naked, completely destitute here in the wilderness. It was cheering enough to help him lunge through the brush onto the sandy bank. To get his hands on what he had left—now things would not be all so bad—
She lifted her head wearily and stared at him with one big eye a moment, causing him to jerk to a sudden halt there on the sand. As he watched, the mare struggled to drag her rear legs beneath her and strained forward, then back, grueling work to rise on her forelegs. In utter shock he stood frozen, staring down the sharp-cut bank at the horse, unable to speak as the tears welled up in his eyes and streaked the mud on his cheeks as they tumbled into his sand-caked beard and mustache.
How she had survived … hell—how he had survived! Erupting into action, he heaved himself off the grassy bank to the muddy sand where she fought to stand on the uneven, soggy ground. Titus snatched hold of the lead rope, tugging on it, calling out to her, offering what encouragement he could—then he burst back along her side to heave against the last of the two packs that had to be weighing her down.
Wearily she got the hind legs under her and stood, shuddered in sheer fatigue, then obediently plodded up the bank, leaving Bass behind to stand in wonder at her.
To that moment he had considered her nothing more than an aging plodder—a good and gentle horse for children to ride, perhaps for nothing more strenuous than a slow carriage through the countryside surrounding St. Louis. But now he marveled at her strength and resolve, how she turned slowly at the top of the bank to look back at him there with the Platte River lapping at his ankles, mud splattered from his toes to his armpits.
There she shuddered again and tossed her head from side to side, flinging muddy phlegm from her nostrils and shaking gritty water from her coat and the one pack clinging to her back that made her stand off balance.
As soon as he joined the mare on the sunny bank, Bass looped an arm over her neck, patting the great, graceful animal he had given up for lost beneath her burden as the river seized them all.
“You s’pose we lost the Injun pony?” he whispered near the mare’s ear.
Then he sighed and turned away slightly, the pain of it all threatening to overwhelm him. “Maybeso we ought’n go have ourselves a look to be certain.”
Wearily he shifted the one pack so that it sat more squarely atop her broad back, then took up the lead rope as she turned about to plod back downstream behind Bass.
After something on the order of two miles he found the carcass. The Indian pony lay snagged in a quiet pool the Platte had formed near its northern bank after the spring runoff had laid up a tangled dam of drift timber and snags. After tying off the mare, Titus plunged into the shallow water, coming to a halt by the pony’s head—still hopeful that the pony would somehow be alive, just as he had found the mare. Slowly he dragged the head around so he could look into its eyes. And lost all hope when he found them already glazing in death.
Crying out with a low sob now that the horse’s death was real, vivid, and immediate, Bass carefully slid from beneath the pony’s muzzle and dragged his muddy legs under him. At the animal’s side he struggled with the twisted, mud-caked cinch in frustration until he finally freed the strap. After several attempts Titus finally succeeded in tugging the saddle from the dead horse’s back. Followed by the heavy, soggy blanket, he dragged both up the bank and flung down in utter exhaustion.
As if she somehow understood the fate of the pony, the mare tossed her head, then inched closer to lower her nose, sniffing at the saddle. She snorted and turned away, returning to browse among the leafy brush.
Again he heaved the wet saddle and blanket, dropping them farther up the bank near his rifle, then collapsed himself to the damp grass in the bright midday light. He sat there for a long time, barely able to move until he realized his skin was beginning to burn.
With agonizing slowness he went to the mare and found only his shirt had survived the tug and pull of the river. No leather britches nor his boots. In exasperation he yanked loose the ropes and let the last heavy pack drop to the ground, where he fell upon it—tearing it apart until he found his old pair of wool britches and three pair of Isaac Washburn’s moccasins.
Then he remembered—the dust. The Pawnee close at hand. Scrambling through the packs, he found the tin of powder kept dry in the river crossing. In another pouch he found Washburn’s pair of old pistols. Tearing rags from his patching material, Bass hurriedly began pulling the loads in his heavy weapons: dragging out the heavy lead balls with sheer muscle and a rifleman’s screw he set in the end of his ramrod, replacing powder, too, after carefully drying the pans and reoiling the barrels.
He was surprised to find that little effort sapped a lot of what he had left for strength. So he sat there a long time with the rifle and pistols at hand, listening for sounds of approaching enemy, staring at the muddy river that had stolen so much from him—yet in the end that river had spat out both him and the packmare. Was he to be angry … or grateful?
Remembering those memories of drowning. Sensing the same tug of warring feelings for the man who had fathered him, pulled him from the Ohio. Resentful of both Thaddeus and the Platte. Yet finding himself so grateful that in the end both had spat him free to carry on as he alone chose to carry on.
It was sometime later as the sun slipped out of midsky when he became aware of the swooping, noisy flock of birds once more. Perhaps they had always been there at the corner of his vision and he just did not pay heed and notice them. Was it their distant squawking cries, or the great ripples they made upon the aching blue overhead, or even the shadows they made of themselves winging back and forth across the land beyond those first hills?
Whatever it was, he watched now—aware that time had slipped past him as he sat regarding the river like time itself: there, then suddenly here at hand right before him, but gone immediately.
“C’mere, girl,” he called out as he wearily rose to his feet.
Dragging up the saddle blanket, he wrung it out best he could, kneeling to knead what water he could from it before flinging it atop the mare’s packsaddle. With a lot of effort he redistributed what he had left into two small packs and lashed them to the horse’s back. Finally Bass nestled the old saddle down into the vee between the packs and untied the long lead rope from the willow.
“Let’s go.”
Through the tall grass he led the mare, their hooves and moccasins dragging against the thick, sturdy stalks. Heading upstream once more. This time on the north bank, angling a bit into the first line of hills—from time to time adjusting his course as he kept himself between the Platte and a line where he would intersect those flocks of tiny black birds.
The sun had nearly dried his clothes, and no longer did they chafe him that late afternoon as he trudged through the low hills, beginning to think on making camp in some ravine out of sight of any wandering Pawnee … beginning to dwell too much on his empty belly and curling up for the night in what must still be damp blankets lashed back there on the packmare. The slope was long as he ascended the sandy hillside, casting a long shadow behind him, hoping from the top he would spot some likely campsite, perhaps in the brush beside a narrow creek that fed the mighty Platte. There he could hide, and sleep.
With just a matter of another two steps to the top of the rise, he prepared to catch his breath and blow, the same way horses blew after an exhausting climb. He blinked into the falling sun—missing his hat even more
