the long weapon across the crook of his left arm and stepped out of the brush, striding purposefully along the ground trampled not only by the pony raiders returning to this village, but by a growing number of converging trails.
At that moment it began to snow lightly—huge, ash-curl flakes swirling down on the still, frozen air. The heavy fragrance of firesmoke slapped him in the face, reminding him that he was one, walking into a village to confront the many who had done him wrong.
Licking at the oozy lower lip, the wound yelped in pain as he entered the thick belt of cottonwood and brush behind which the tops of the lodges disappeared. A few more steps and he realized the village actually sat across a narrow river that dumped itself into the Yellowstone.
For no more than the measure of a few heartbeats he stopped among the leafless willow and studied the lodges on the western bank. Then looked at the river itself, and the ford leading down to it. After drawing back the rifle hammer to full-cock, Bass dragged the pistol from his sash … and moved out of the brush, down the trampled, muddy snow to the ford.
Straight into the icy water that swirled around his ankles, then up his calves to splay the bottom of his capote out upon the river surface as he reached midstream. A woman coming down to the bank upriver to his left stopped, watched for a moment, then turned about and lunged up the trampled snow, shouting. Her shrill cry sent a trio of magpies bursting from the low branches hanging over the far side of the crossing.
Knots of children suddenly emerged from the open places between the lodges, hurrying for a glimpse of him as he reached the west bank. A half-dozen horsemen whooped up out of the thickening snow, halting with a cascade of icy clods, brandishing their weapons and shouting at him.
Camp guards.
Stopping, he glared at them, each one in turn, letting them see that he was not afraid of their boasts, letting them see that though his rifle was not pointed up the low rise right at them, it was nonetheless ready to fire in their direction. He brought the pistol arm up and rested the long barrel of the heavy rifle across the left wrist. And pushed on up the rise toward the outlying lodges as more of the curious gathered to watch his approach.
Around to his left poured three horsemen, piercing the thick grove of cottonwood, perhaps seeking to sweep behind him.
Bass turned, his knees slightly bent, whirling and bringing up the rifle’s muzzle. One of the riders signaled the other two, and they all three halted; then the one sent the pair across the river.
“No, you stupid red nigger!” Scratch growled at the horseman. Then he quickly stuffed the pistol back into his belt and raised that left hand, holding up one finger. Quickly he brought that finger down to jab at his own chest. “There’s only one of me!”
Yanking the pistol back out of his sash, Scratch continued to the top of the low rise as children, women, and dogs began to part before him, opening a wide gauntlet for the stranger. Faces emerged out of the crowd, heads poking around others, children staring out between the legs of adults, dogs slinking behind him to sniff warily at his heels until he wheeled and swung the heavy iron muzzle of the rifle at one of the curs—catching the animal in the ribs, bowling it over, driving the dog off yelping and whimpering with its tail between its legs.
“Ti-tess!”
Sounded something like his name.
Bass whirled again on the crowd and started moving once more—the hair prickling on the back of his neck. As he pushed ahead through the widening gauntlet, his eyes searched the faces, spotting a man forcing his way through the pack to stand in the open some twenty feet away between the two columns.
“Ti-tess!”
“Bird in Ground?” He quickly looked over the man wrapped in a heavy wool blanket. “That really you?”
“Me, Ti-tess!” the man-woman shouted, and came hurrying across the snow as fast as his blanket would allow.
The blanket opened as Bird in Ground reached the trapper, revealing the beautiful dress the man-woman wore, heavily decorated with elk milk teeth. The Crow threw his arms around Scratch, embracing and pounding the startled white man on the back.
“I’ll be damned,” Bass muttered.
“Yes, damned,” the Indian repeated in his best imitation of his mentor’s speech.
“I recall some of these here faces …” and his voice trailed off. Then he set the rifle butt on the ground and signed while he spoke in what little Crow he remembered from winters gone before. “This is
The man-woman nodded. “Some of these people remember your visit so many winters ago.”
Quickly gazing at the cluster of faces watching the two of them expectantly, Bass drew his shoulders back. “My friend: in your camp … there are five thieves.”
“Thieves?” Bird in Ground repeated.
He signed for “horse,” remembering the Crow didn’t have a word for “mule.” “Pony thieves. Five of your men took my three horses. Two nights ago. I followed them here.”
“Yes,” and the man-woman turned, pulling the blanket around his shoulders. He pointed off through the camp. “They came in a short time ago. Shouting, happy—proud of their new horses.”
“I want my horses back,” Bass signed and said in his stuttering Crow. “Then … I want those five—here.”
“You came to take their scalps?” Bird in Ground asked, his eyes narrowing.
“I get my horses back,” he explained, “I won’t want their lives. Just want some of their blood.”
“You will fight all five—as one finger would fight the whole other hand?”
“If I have to,” Bass answered. “But one especially: the man I watched beat one of my animals.”
“Where was this?” a voice demanded above the murmurs of the crowd.
Scratch turned, peering over Bird in Ground’s shoulder at the tall, regal warrior approaching them from afar. Already the crowd had parted for this impressive figure the moment he had emerged from his lodge, which sat at the center of the great camp circle. Quickly Bass glanced at the tall tripod standing near the doorway as the villagers stepped back in deference to this handsome and powerful man.
Turning back to Bird in Ground, Titus asked, “You lived with Big Hair’s band—”
“These are the same people,” the man explained as the tall warrior approached. “We were Big Hair’s band.”
“What became of your chief?”
“Big Hair was killed in a fight with the Blackfoot,” the man-woman explained just as the tall warrior came to a halt and his expressive eyes measured the white man. Bird in Ground continued, “The new chief of our people … is Arapooesh.”
“Ara … Arapooesh,” Bass repeated, then took off his mitten and held out his hand.
For a moment the chief looked down at it, then seized Bass’s wrist in his hand, and they shook, gripping one another’s forearms. The tall man had a warm and genuinely disarming smile.
“Ti-tuzz Bazz,” Bird in Ground explained the white man’s name.
After repeating the foreign sounds for himself, Arapooesh pointed at the fur cap pulled so far down over Bass’s head it reached clear to the eyebrows, hung below his ears on both sides. He said something so rapidly to Bird in Ground that Scratch was able to follow none of it.
“Arapooesh asked if you had a long trip. If you stayed warm.”
“Yes, I stayed warm,” Bass replied, wondering how much of that answer was the truth. “Tell your chief why I am here.”
Bird in Ground asked, “The horse thieves?”
“Thieves?” Arapooesh echoed.
“Yes,” the Crow man-woman told the chief. “The white man followed the men who stole his horses. Their trail led him to our camp.”
“The horse thieves came here?”
Bird in Ground nodded, his eyes narrowing. “I know the ones, Arapooesh. I saw them return this morning after they were gone many days. They brought two ponies and the white man’s strange horse with them.”
“Strange horse?” Arapooesh asked.
“Half-a-horse,” the Crow man-woman attempted to explain.
“Ahh, I have seen some of those,” and then the chief studied Bass a moment more. “Are you a friend of Bird
