“We never was the best-off folks in Portage des Sioux outside of St. Charles,” he explained. “So my pa set me to work with a blacksmith, learn me a trade.”
“You don’t say,” Titus replied with happy recognition. “I worked for many a year in Hysham Troost’s place.”
“There in St. Lou? I heard of it, often,” the mulatto replied. “Casner’s was the blacksmith shop where I apprenticed for some five years.”
“Then you come out here to the mountains?” Bass inquired.
“Nawww. Not when I left Casner’s,” Beckwith said. “First I fought Injuns with Colonel Johnson’s expedition up to Fever River when I was released from Casner’s indenture … only nineteen, I was by then. Short time later I figured to take me a ride on down to N’Awlins … where I got yellow fever for my trouble. Barely made it back home alive to my folks at Portage des Sioux, and there I stayed put, healing up, till I learned General Ashley was outfitting him a new brigade for the mountains.”
“I first knowed of Ashley some time back—had him outfits going upriver for the last few years,” Bass observed. “When was it you first come out with him?”
“Back to twenty-four,” Jim answered, his eyes growing wide with excitement, “and that was the first year the general wasn’t headed upriver with them keelboats to get on by the Ree villages. This time he was bound to ride overland for the mountains.”
“Say, boys—my belly’s beginning to holler for fodder,” Potts declared, leaning over to scoop up a handful of sand from the bottom of the pool. “Telling me it’s time to eat my fill of that elk we shot this morning.”
For a few moments Titus watched with interest as Potts, then Beckwith, scooped up one handful after another and used it to scrub their skin.
“What’re you two doing?”
Potts replied, “Givin’ ourselves a good washing.”
“Just sittin’ there in the river isn’t going to help a man much,” the mulatto advised.
“When was the last time you sat your ass down in some water?” Potts asked.
With a shrug Titus said, “Been a long time. ’Cept for times I swum rivers with my critters and stood freezing in mountain streams—I ain’t been near no washing water for more’n a year.”
“Once a year,” Potts instructed, “a man ought’n wash up proper … as good a cleaning as he can.”
Bass said, “I never figgered I’d be one to carry me lye soap.”
“We ain’t the sort to carry no soap neither,” Beckwith explained. “But a good hard scrubbin’ with sand does a toler’ble job, Scratch.”
“Awright,” Titus answered them, scooping up a double handful of sand, which he smeared over his chest.
“Rub it hard, now,” Potts said. “Gotta get shet of all that stink afore ronnyvoos.”
“If you watch, you’ll see your horses and mules does about the same thing when they have themselves a roll in the dirt,” Beckwith said as he pulled one leg out of the water and began sanding it.
Next to his, Bass’s leg was starkly white. In fact, Scratch was so pale, his legs reminded him of the skinny white legs on the pullets the family raised back on the place in Boone County. Only his hands from wrist down were deeply tanned, along with that wide vee extending from his neck onto his chest, as well as his darkened face. Except for those river crossings when he briefly stripped off his clothing, every other part of his pale hide had been protected from much exposure to the sun’s light as far back as he could remember.
At first it was an odd sensation, rubbing the river bottom grit from chin to toe, but soon enough it became a right pleasant feeling. In fact, his skin began to tingle and glow the more he scrubbed.
“That ’bout does it for me,” Beckwith announced as he rose out of the water, turned, and long-legged it onto the riverbank to stand dripping among the foxsedge.
“I’m done too,” Potts agreed as he stood with a splash.
Bass watched in amusement as the two trembled and quaked, shaking what they could of the water from their flesh just like a hound. Then, as the evening breezes cooled, they quickly stepped into their clothing, despite still being a little damp. Potts pulled on leather britches and a ragged, dirty calico shirt. Beneath his linen shirt Beckwith wore a pair of leggings and a breechclout, same as Bass.
As Titus emerged from the water, shivering in the gentle movement of a cool wind, the other two plopped to the ground and began pulling on their moccasins.
“Dang if it ain’t time to fill up my meatbag,” Potts declared. “Been a long stretch since breakfast.”
“C’mon, now—don’t dally,” Beckwith urged Bass. “Unless you hurry, there won’t be a thing left for us to eat.”
“He’s right.” Potts smacked with relish. “Them others can eat a horse by themselves—and all we got us is half a elk!”
Titus leaped into his clothes, suddenly discovering he was himself immensely hungry after the long day’s ride, followed by that invigorating bath. As the trio neared the fire lighting the ring of deeply tanned faces, Fitzpatrick stood, wiping his greasy fingers in his hair as he called out.
“That you, Potts?”
They strode into the corona of firelight as Daniel announced, “It’s me.”
“You got Beckwith?”
“I’m here,” the mulatto replied, coming into the light.
All three stopped near the fire ring. Potts was the first to yank his knife from his belt and bend down over one of the two roasting elk quarters. He sliced himself a long, narrow slab of the pink meat still dripping juice and blood into the flames below—each drop landing with a merry hiss.
“Just wanted to tell you what I reminded the rest here,” Fitzpatrick declared. “When you roll out in the morning, see to it you trim off that beard of your’n.”
Potts eyed the brigade leader. “All of it?”
Fitzpatrick nodded. “You too, Beckwith.”
Scratching at the side of his face, the mulatto said, “A shame, Fitz. I been growing real particular to it since winter.”
Sporting his own brown beard, Fitzpatrick replied, “If you don’t wanna stay working for Ashley long, then a man can keep his beard, boys. Otherwise—you know the general’s rule. He don’t ’llow no beards on his men.”
Titus asked, “Why’s Ashley so all-fired against beards?”
“He’s a trader, mind you,” Fitzpatrick explained, stepping close. “And traders allays deal with them Injuns, don’t they?”
“Yep,” Billy Hooks answered, leaping into the conversation.
With a cursory glance at the mat of facial hair on Hooks, Fitzpatrick went on. “General’s come to know Injuns don’t like beards. They don’t much favor any kind of hair on a man’s face.”
“That’s why they pluck ever’ damn hair out,” Bridger added with a mock shudder. “Even the eyebrows too.”
Fitzpatrick continued. “Few years back Ashley learned him that some Injun bands won’t have nothing to do with a man wearing a beard. They say it hides a feller’s face. And the Injuns is big on reading a man’s face to see that he’s talking straight.”
“Man kin grow him a beard,” Potts declared, “but he dare’st not let the general ever see it.”
“All that fuss over a man’s beard?” Tuttle inquired.
“You free trappers don’t have to worry none over that,” Fitzpatrick explained.
Potts stepped back with a second slice of elk hanging from his knife. “But you free trappers best ’member the general takes care of his own fellas first.”
“An’ if Ashley’s got anythin’ left after he outfits his own for the next year,” a new man spoke up with an accent that reminded Bass of the Spanish and French tongues heard at the mouth of the Mississippi, “then you free trappers might get to pick over the leavin’s.”
Bass studied that speaker for a moment as the older man bit down on one end of a long strip of meat, pulled the strip out from his lips with one hand, then used the knife he clutched in his other hand to slice off a good mouthful. He had long black hair prematurely sprinkled with gray where it hung loosely on either side of his well- wrinkled face, and his beard was starting to show a dusting of iron too, although the man was clearly younger than Titus.
