boiled again—smelling it, downwind of the fire as he was. Over time his fire burned down to nothing but thin wisps of smoke, then slowly went out as he watched. And waited. And tried to think of what more Hysham Troost would be doing for a horse suffering the sand colic.
He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep right there with the mare’s head in his lap the way it was until he came awake with something tapping on the sole of his boot and a voice booming in his ears.
“I’ll be go to hell!” the deep voice cried. “It be a white nigger for sure!”
Bass jerked up, his eyes squinting, blinking, straining to see through the veil of trees and gently falling snow as the dark form moved back from him and brought up a rifle to point at his belly.
Bass sat frozen, his bowels run cold—come awake suddenly to stare up, then down the immense figure before him. The man was dressed in a blanket coat, hood pulled over his head, with a black beard that reached to midchest and a belt around his waist where several long black scalps hung near his knife scabbard. From the greasy, muddy bottom of his coat extended his legs, stuffed within two faded, red-wool blanket tubes, fringe gently swaying at their outer seam above thick winter moccasins.
How Titus wished now that he’d brought the rifle close. “What … just who the hell are you—”
“Injuns! By damn, we’re Injuns!” a new voice shrieked from the timber, drawing Bass’s attention as another figure leaped into the camp clearing—dressed completely as an Indian like the first, the fringe on his leather war shirt whirling round and round as he danced toward Titus: whooping and hollering, rhythmically clapping his hand over his mouth,
Suddenly that figure whirled up beside the first man and stopped, asking, “What you figger him to be doin’ just a’squatting there by that horse, Silas?”
Titus set fus eyes again on the tall, dimly lit figure in the hooded coat standing over him in that gentle fall of early snow, his face hidden in shadow.
The tall figure said, “Shit—stupid son of a bitch appears to be rockin’ that god-danged horse to sleep, don’t he, Billy?”
Then a third voice laughed along with the two standing there in front of Bass. From the shadows that new voice shouted.
And a third long-haired Indian-look-alike came stomping and whirling and
Damn! Titus swallowed hard, watching the third hairy, bearded man dance up, watched how the second joined in the dance and chanting, watched with growing uneasiness the way the first figure continued to stare right down at him—his face hidden within the hood of his blanket coat.
No, Bass told himself—I don’t wanna fear no man, red nor white.
“You’re wolf bait now for sure, pilgrim!” cried the second man; then he let out a bloodcurdling scream, dragging his knife from its scabbard and shaking it in Bass’s face.
Titus’s eyes quickly shot to where his rifle stood against a tree, and where the pistol lay beyond it. These had to be white men, he told himself as he ran his tongue around the inside of his dry mouth, suddenly surprised that it had the texture of sand. After all, they spoke his tongue, didn’t they?
Then it struck him: Why, he hadn’t heard the sound of a human voice other than his in … in a damned long time. Damn, but why was these white fellas in Injun clothes?
“How—howdy, fellas … whyn’t all of you g’won over there by my fire and have yourselves a sit,” he called out in a croak, the words emerging squeaky from that dry throat.
The tall hooded one stretched out his arms, a gesture that immediately slowed the two wild dancers. With a booming voice he said, “By damn, boys—’pears we got us an invite to help that son of a bitch rock his horse to sleep!”
“You sure he ain’t no dangerous Injun killer, Silas?” the third voice finally asked.
The second man’s face lit up with mirth as he asked, “How the bejesus can this pilgrim be a Injun killer when he ain’t got him no gun?”
Again Bass glanced at his weapons across the small clearing, there among his bedding. All he had here at hand was the belt knife.
“He won’t do us no harm,” the nearest one said inside the shadow of his hood.
Suddenly there was the face of the man who had spoken. Bass jerked his head up, watching the figure step closer, yanking back on the hood to his blanket coat then and there in the murky shadows as snow fell into the camp clearing. Damn near as tall as any man he’d ever seen, damn near as big as Hezekiah Christmas. And Hezekiah was the biggest man he’d ever laid his mortal eyes on.
“Don’t figger we need to cover him no more, eh?” the second man said as he stepped out of the shadows no more than twenty feet away.
Then some needles snapped behind Titus. He twisted his head around to watch the third man advance into the camp clearing.
“He ain’t got a gun on him,” this third one said. “Don’t figger he’s about to kill none of us by axe-see- dent.”
The big man in the center came a step closer. Titus studied the way he carried his rifle captured in the crook of his left arm and a pistol ready, there in his right hand. Now the tall one began to wave that pistol at the second man.
“Billy—punch that fire so I can warm my ass.”
“Helluva way to go and wake a man up,” Bass grumbled, angry at himself for feeling embarrassed at being caught flat-footed and unarmed.
The tall man watched his eyes flick over to the rifle again. “One thing y’ll learn, son—y’ best keep your guns at your side. No matter you’re taking a shit”—and that made the second man guffaw with a great gust of laughter —“or y’ be rolled up with nothing more’n your own dreams to keep y’ warm at night.”
“Just who … who the blue blazes are you?” Bass inquired.
Pounding the pistol barrel against his chest, the big man replied, “Me? Why, hell—my name’s Silas Cooper.”
“He’s the big bull in this lick, he is—that Silas. Yessirreebob!” the second man said, his head nodding in emphasis.
Cooper came a bit closer, his eyes narrowing. “So who might be you?”
Bass’s eyes went back to Cooper’s. “Titus … Titus Bass.”
“Where you come from?” the third man demanded as he came around to a spot where Bass could see him without turning his head. He looked a tarnal mess with his long, unkempt beard.
“St. L-louis,” he answered with that croaky voice.
“This here’s Bud Tuttle,” Cooper introduced the third man, pointing at him with his pistol.
“Ain’t my first name, but everyone calls me Bud.”
“’Cause he don’t like Hyrum none!” the second man gushed with a wild giggle.
“That’s right,” Tuttle replied. “My name’s Bud.”
Just as Titus began to nod his head to the third man, ready to ask the last man his name, Cooper began to move off to the right, stuffing his pistol into the wide, colorful sash he had tied about his waist. The tall man asked, “How long y’ been up here in these parts, Titus Bass?”
“Since end of summer.”
“That long, eh?” Cooper asked as he neared the mare’s rear flanks, sniffing, wrinkling his nose up at the strong stench.
“Ain’t had you much luck trapping, have you?” the second man asked.
“Was going out this morning—when the horse here was took with sand colic,” Bass explained.
“Damnation,” Cooper said with a sigh as he settled some distance back from the horse’s tail and studied the ground around the mare’s hind end.
“What is it, Silas?” Tuttle asked.
“G’won now, Billy,” and he looked up at the second man. “Y’ get yourself introduced proper, then get that fire punched.”
