With an open-faced grin that second man snagged the fur cap off his head and bowed slightly from the waist, showing that he kept his long hair tied back in a long queue. He flashed a handsome, gap-toothed smile, announcing, “Name’s Hooks, mister. Billy Hooks.”
“So now y’ know us all. Silas be my name,” Cooper repeated as he looked up from the moist ground he had been inspecting near the horse’s flank, “that’s Billy y’ just met, and him over there is Bud.”
“Pleased,” Bass replied, reaching up to scratch at the incessant itch there at his collar, “pleased to meet you all.”
“Bet y’ are,” Cooper growled. “Better us’n some half-starved red niggers out for hair or coup.”
“K-koo?”
The tall man slipped his wide-brimmed felt hat off the back of his head, grabbed a gob of his own long black hair in one hand, and pulled it straight up while his other hand whipped out his belt knife and dragged the back of the blade showily across his throat—while he made a scratchy, wheezing sound.
“Meaning the red bellies gonna slit your goddamned pilgrim, idjit, pork-eater throat, the sonsabitches would,” Silas grumbled, stuffing the knife away and pulling the hat back over his head.
“I … I don’t eat no pork,” Titus explained sheep-faced. “Don’t eat no more Ned.”
“Then y’ have the makings of a good man, Titus Bass,” Cooper declared with a sudden smile. “There be enough god-blamed Frenchie pork-eaters in these here mountains awready!”
Billy gushed with that easy laughter of his as he came over from the fire to squat near Titus, grinning as if he’d just made himself a new friend for life.
“What you think, Silas?” Turtle asked as he came up to stand behind Cooper, peering down at the horse’s hind end.
“Black water—ain’t no two ways about it,” Silas clucked, then shook his head one time for emphasis.
“B-black water?” Titus repeated. “Nawww. She’s just got her a li’l case of colic. Likely it be the sand colic —”
“I said it was black water, Titus Bass,” Cooper snapped, rising to point down at the remains of the dark, murky liquid the mare had spewed on the ground behind her. “Come see here for your own self.”
“Ah right. Black … black water,” Titus repeated, not daring to move, not daring to show Cooper he doubted him. He felt cold in his belly of a sudden. Looking down into the mare’s one eye staring wildly up at him. If it was black water, then there wasn’t much a man could do. Not much time neither. “I was … hoping it was the colic.”
“Bet y’ walked her, didn’t you?” Cooper asked.
How helpless he felt, maybe having a hand in killing his only horse. “Yes … well—I thought it was the colic!”
“It’s awright, son,” Silas said, suddenly sounding almost fatherly so soon after he had been downright snarly. “Most folks don’t know how to tell the black water until it’s too late.”
“Too late?”
“Listen, Titus Bass,” Cooper said as he came over to kneel beside Titus, “this critter’s in some terrible pain. And when a body’s in pain—it’s allays best to put it right outta its misery, ain’t it?”
Lord, he fought not to sob, especially when Cooper leaned over to put an arm around his shoulder, just the way his grandpap used to do. Bass could feel the tears sting as they started to well in his eyes.
“Y’ll get along just fine—won’t he, Bud?” Silas offered.
“That’s right, Titus,” Tuttle replied, pushing some of his long sandy-blond hair back out of his eyes. “Where’s your other horses?”
“Other … other horses?” Bass asked dumbly.
Cooper asked, “Y’ got mules?”
“I ain’t got no other’ns.”
Billy shrieked with sudden unrestrained belly laughter, clamping a hand over his mouth when Cooper shot him a stern, disapproving look.
Then Silas was tugging Titus up. “Bud, gimme a hand getting Titus up on his feet. Here, son—that’s it, Titus … y’ don’t wanna go down like your only horse there, now—do you?”
As much as Titus tried to think of speaking, of what to say, of what the hell to do, his mouth just wagged wordlessly.
“Y’ mean to bald-face tell me you come out here to the mountains with one horse only?” Cooper inquired.
“Started off with two from St. Louie,”
Tuttle asked, “So what happed to the other’n?”
“Lost it—crossing the Platte.”
“Spring flood?” Billy asked, that big grin brightening his face.
With a shake of his head Titus shrugged and replied, “Don’t know—bottom just gone out from under us and we … this mare and me, we barely swum ourselves out.”
“Y’ ever find the other horse?”
He looked at Cooper and nodded. “Dragged the saddle off’n it. Was a Injun pony.”
“Injun pony?” Tuttle asked, concern on his face. “What sort of Injun pony?”
“Don’t rightly know. Just that it come down from Fort Kiowa with a friend of mine.”
“Friend?” Billy asked.
“Isaac Washburn. The Injun pony was his.”
“And this here mare’s yours?” Silas said.
Bass looked down at the horse. She flailed that rear leg about again, only this time with a much more feeble movement. “She was give me by a man in St. Louis.”
Cooper flung his long arm around Titus’s shoulder, saying, “A good horse this was, Titus Bass, weren’t it?”
“She got me here—all the way here.”
Then he felt what Cooper suddenly pressed into his belly. Slowly he looked down and saw the pistol pushed against his blanket coat. Fear knotted cold in his gut.
“Take it, Titus Bass,” Cooper demanded. “Finish off the god-blamed animal, y’ idjit. Cain’t y’ see she’s in some awful pain?”
“F-finish?”
“Shoot her!” Billy cried. “She’s dying anyways—so, shoot her now!”
“I … ain’t there nothing can be done?” he begged of Cooper, turning toward the tall man, trying to push away the pistol the tall man shoved into his belly.
“Not when a critter’s gone and got black water,” Cooper said quietly, his big, beautiful eyes gone sad and limpid. “Once a horse goes down with black water—that critter ain’t never getting up on his legs again. Y’ cain’t be squampshus about it. Time for y’ to do the decent thing, Titus Bass.”
“I can’t shoot her,” he pleaded. “Don’t have me no other horse. This here’s the only one—”
“Gimme the goddamned pistol, y’ weasel-stoned pup!” Cooper growled angrily as he yanked the weapon from Bass’s hand and dragged back the hammer.
“No!” Titus bellowed, hurling himself at the man’s long, powerful arm. “No—don’t you see if it’s to be done, I’m the one gotta do it?”
Cooper looked down at him with those long-lashed, limpid eyes of his that Bass was sure could hypnotize lesser men. “That’s right, Titus Bass. Now you’re showing a lick of good sense: see that you’re the one what’s gotta do it—if’n you’re man enough.”
“The nigger ain’t man enough!” Billy cried, sidestepping a little jig in eager anticipation. “Ain’t man enough!”
“Shuddup, Billy!” Tuttle ordered. “Leave ’im be.”
With gratitude Bass glanced at Bud Tuttle and found there in the man’s homely face something that said he understood Bass’s reluctance—something that said he just plain understood.
“I’ll do it … if’n there’s no other way,” Bass reluctantly said.
Cooper and the others backed away a few steps. Then Silas said, “She’s been good to y’. Now’s time for y’ to return that good, Titus Bass. Take her outta her misery.”
