Buffalo Palace

the spring grass, the cry of meadowlarks and the bothersome chatter of a nagging magpie too, the gentle breeze sneaking through the new leaves above him with a faint, reassuring rustle.

Then for a moment it got so quiet, he could almost hear his heart beat … except for the voice of the river running over its rocky bed, pushing itself against a boulder here and there with a foaming rush.

So quiet was it, so alone was he again, that Scratch succumbed to the temptation to fill that empty void as he watched that distant spot on the river, there between the wide banks of the Yellowstone where the three had disappeared.

“Yepper,” he sighed, every bit as quietly as the breeze itself. “I’ll watch my topknot.”

*Pryor Mountains and Pryor Creek, named for Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor, part of the command who accompanied Lewis and Clark west to the Pacific Ocean

*Near present-day Livingston, Montana

** Bozeman Pass

*Independence Rock, in present-day Wyoming

17

No one was waiting for him there at the mouth of the Bighorn.

For the better part of two weeks Scratch struggled to keep that cavvyyard together as he marched east to meet up with Silas Cooper and the other two. A lot of work for one man.

There was watering the critters two at a time every morning before he fried himself his own breakfast. And there was keeping them strung out enough on the trail that they didn’t jam up so close they would bite on one another or tear at one another’s tails—but not so far apart that they took on unruly notions. Good thing, he thought, these animals were used to being around one another by and large and had made of themselves a good herd. That helped each night when it came time for him to find a place to camp.

Bass stopped early enough at the end of every one of those lengthening days to water them again two by two by two while the others grazed and rolled, dusting themselves as the mosquitoes and flies came out in springtime clouds to torture man and beast alike. And when the watering was done, Titus would build himself a fire down beneath the branches of the biggest cottonwood he could find along the banks of the river. The leaves and that incessant breeze in the valley of the Yellowstone helped to disperse the smoke rising from his cookfire, as well as hold down the number of tormentors wanting a taste of his flesh, to draw some of his blood.

After broiling his antelope or venison shot along the trail, Bass would drink his coffee, light up his pipe, and enjoy the temporary warmth of the fire as the night came down and the temperature dropped. Then when the cooking gear had cooled off enough to stuff it away in one of the panniers he could sling back atop Hannah’s back —closing on the time all light was just about gone from the sky, he poured out the dregs of his coffee and kicked dirt into the tiny fire.

That done, Bass mounted the saddle horse, took up Hannah’s lead rope, and rode over to where the other animals grazed on the tall grass. There he clucked, whistled, and called as he pulled Hannah through their midst. And most times, without much trouble at all, the rest of the horses and mules followed. Two miles, perhaps, sometimes more, on downriver—and when he had found a likely spot for more grazing beneath the stars, a likely spot where a man could roll up in his blankets for a cold, fire-less camp, then he would circle back around the small herd to let them know that here they could stop following and start eating again.

In country where the Apsaalooke themselves had so many enemies, it would never pay for a man to become too careless. Especially a man with so many horses.

Not that he feared the Crow. Not Big Hair’s people—now that they knew him. Now that he had spent a winter among them.

Yet repeatedly Bird in Ground had warned Scratch: the Blackfoot came raiding as the spring winds grew warm. Just as the River Crow would go riding off to raid Blackfoot country. Ponies and scalps … and if the opportunity presented itself—the Crow would always bring back an infant or a young child. Such stolen treasures would one day grow up to be Apsaalooke, no longer the enemy. After all, Bird in Ground had explained, there were never enough Apsaalooke, would never be enough when it came to defending their homeland against the powerful enemies who had Absaraka surrounded.

Perhaps it was true that Akbaatatdia did watch over his people, the Crow, protecting them from all those who outnumbered them.

Perhaps that powerful spirit that Bird in Ground called Grandfather Above had watched over Titus Bass, as well, while he was in Absaraka. Not that Scratch had ever been one to particularly believe in the naming of spiritual forces, as others, both white and red, were wont to do. Those who believed in such things had always seemed to be the sort to turn their lives over to such spirits rather than trusting in themselves, he figured. Whether it was the white man’s God, his Lord of Hosts, even the Archangel Michael and ol’ Lucifer himself—or the simple, unadorned beliefs of an honest man like Bird in Ground, who explained that the Grandfather Above was present in all things, and the closest spirit the Crow had to the white man’s devil could only be the playful practical joker called Old Man Coyote.

So perhaps it was that trickster who was toying with Titus Bass right now as he forded the Bighorn near its mouth, swatting his arms at clouds of mosquitoes and big green deerflies that hovered above the sweating backs of every one of the horses and mules as they splashed up through the brush on the east bank.

There simply was no fort on either side of the Bighorn River.

In angry frustration he lashed Hannah’s lead rope to some willow, knowing the other animals would not wander far, then remounted and pushed the saddle horse down the bank, fording the swollen Yellowstone. Riding an arc of more than two miles from east to west along that north bank, Scratch found no fur-company buildings nor pole corrals, no sign of any white men. Only some two dozen old lodge rings and fading black fire pits on this side of the river. Sign that was likely more than a year old. That, and a lot of buffalo chips scattered among the hoof- pocked ground.

In utter, all-consuming disappointment he swam the horse back over late that afternoon, redressed into his dry clothing, then got the animals moving east once more, growing more confused and concerned for his partners.

Perhaps they hadn’t made it, he began to fear. Maybe some accident had befallen them back yonder between here and the great bend of the Yellowstone. Worse still—attacked. But, no—he tried to shake off that nagging uncertainty as he pushed on east away from the Bighorn itself, resolutely.

After all, he’d come down the Yellowstone behind them. Wouldn’t he have seen some sign of a fight if the other three had been jumped by a Blackfoot raiding party that chanced onto the trappers? Wouldn’t he have seen one of the rafts pulled up to the bank, or if it had been set adrift, wouldn’t he have seen it snagged in some of the driftwood piles the Yellowstone itself gathered every few hundred yards when running full and frothy the way it did in spring?

Wouldn’t there be a chance he’d seen a body trapped in the same downriver driftwood piles?

Unless the Blackfoot dragged ’em off, he convinced himself. Half-alive. Tall and gory were the tales of how the Blackfoot loved to torture a man….

And then Bass told himself that he could have missed all sign of the trio’s destruction, because he had only come down the north bank of the Yellowstone until reaching the mouth of the Bighorn—and he hadn’t hugged right up to the bank, at that. What with picking the easiest country to cross with all these animals, Titus hadn’t always stayed in constant sight of the riverbank. Could be he’d missed something. Could be there’d been some sign on the south side of the river, and he’d passed it right on by.

But he hadn’t come far from the east bank of the Bighorn—the certainty of what had befallen the others looming all the larger with every step—when he spotted the ruins squatting on a small thumb of high ground not far ahead.

After dismounting nearby and leaving the saddle horse to graze with the rest, Scratch hurried to the burned and overgrown ruins of the small log post—hopeful that he would find where the trio were to leave him their notice. At least now he knew for certain there was no Missouri Fur Company post here where the trio could trade their