Not long after the saffron orb had slinked from the summer sky, Scratch noticed how that smudge of dust to the south had faded. The riders must have put in for camp up there a ways in the valley of Black’s Fork. And from there he calculated it wasn’t more than nine, ten days at the most before he’d finally reach the inner-mountain valley where Sublette promised to meet the company brigades for July.
Before long he grew wary, figuring he had dogged the war party’s backtrail close enough and found himself a place where he tied off the animals, letting them graze while he set off on foot along the east side of the valley. Watching to the southwest as the shadows lengthened, sticking his nose in the wind for firesmoke, keeping his eyes moving from horizon to horizon. That bunch might have hunters out, after all. Making meat for supper. It wouldn’t pay to have a run-in with one or two of the bastards, then find himself tracked by the rest as they tried to run him down.
Goddamned Bannocks. Who the hell did they think they was, anyway? He’d been run down by the best of ’em—riding day and night with the Apache breathing down on his ass. No way these here Bannocks ever come close to measuring up to Apache.
He stopped there in the shadows of the man-sized willow that bordered the coulee and sniffed again. Woodsmoke.
His mouth went dry.
That weren’t no summer thunderstorm grass fire. No, that was a smell altogether different. This was wood- smoke. Even had the smell of broiling meat braided around the edges of that stronger scent.
And that made his dry mouth water.
Then Bass remembered that he was slipping up on some thieving red bastards, scolding himself that he’d better forget his feed bag for now.
After checking the priming in both the rifle and pistol for the fifth or sixth time, Titus angled down the side of the coulee toward the river valley, hanging with the cover offered him by the thick, leafy brush.
Less than a half hour later, he stopped suddenly—his nose greeted by horse sweat wafted on that cooling breeze nuzzling its way down the riverbank. Another twenty yards and … he heard them.
Parting the willow with the rifle’s muzzle, Titus spotted the horses. Son of a bitch if that wasn’t a white man’s tack on that piebald! Not no braided buffalo-hair hackamore.
And that roan! Hell if he hadn’t seen it before!
One of the horses on the far side of the bunch whinnied low as a figure stepped out of the tree shadows and headed for the piebald. Scratch’s heart stopped then and there in his chest—
“Rufus Graham!”
The figure wheeled at the call of his name, yanking on the pistol he had stuffed into the wide, colorful sash at his waist.
“Don’t shoot me, Rufus!”
As Bass rose to his feet there in the thick willow, he watched the horses part, listened to the ground reverberate with running feet. At the far side of the clearing where a wary Rufus Graham stood frozen, there suddenly appeared the other five.
Titus didn’t know when their ugly, hairy faces had ever looked prettier!
“Eegod, boys!” Jack Hatcher yelped as he stepped closer, a wide slash of a grin splitting the lower half of his bearded face. “If it ain’t Titus Bass his own self … riz right up from the dead!”
25
The six of them had near pounded him to black-and-blue there in that little clearing as the horses snorted around them.
“Lookee here, boys!” Hatcher roared as he grabbed hold of the front of Bass’s shirt—cocking his head this way, then that, looking at Scratch from different angles. “If this nigger ain’t graying up like a ol’ barn owl!”
“Ain’t he now!” Solomon agreed, yanking the wide-brimmed hat off Scratch’s head. He held up that narrow braid of hair hanging there in front of Bass’s left ear.
Titus nabbed it away from Fish, his eyes crossing as he focused on it. “Gray?”
“See what I tol’t you!” Elbridge roared. “Hell, Jack-Titus Bass rode with Asa McAfferty too long awready!”
Caleb asked, “You mean he’s getting white-headed like that ol’ preacher?”
“My hair ain’t white!” he protested.
Jack rocked back on his heels, grinning like a house cat put out to the barn where all the mice are at play. “Sure are getting ol’t, Scratch. Maybeso ye ain’t had nothing scare yer hair to white … but this here’s certain sign ye’re getting ol’t!”
Bass lunged for him suddenly, sweeping low beneath Hatcher’s right arm to hoist the surprised man onto his shoulders as he straightened, raising Jack right off the ground and flipping him right on across his back so that Hatcher flopped into the waist-high grass. The other five roared, holding their bellies as they guffawed at the stunned Hatcher, some pounding their knees, bent over in a laughing fit.
“Tell me now just how ol’t I am, Jack Hatcher!” Scratch bellowed like a wounded bull, standing over the man sprawled on the ground, balling his fists on his hips, just daring Hatcher to get back to his feet again.
“Ol’t enough ye ought’n know better!” and Jack swung out with his leg, catching Bass at the ankles, sweeping Scratch’s feet cleanly off the ground, toppling him right beside Hatcher. “Damn, if it ain’t good to see ye!” Jack bawled, slugging a fist into Scratch’s shoulder.
“We had you figgered for gone under!” Rufus declared as he dropped to his knee nearby.
Isaac lunged up, saying, “You see’d hair or hide of McAfferty?”
“Naw,” Scratch answered as he slowly got to his feet, dusting off his leggings. “Heard of him—from Bridger’s bunch. Said they saw him last fall.”
“Up to Three Forks?” Solomon asked.
“On north of there a good ways Asa run onto ’em.”
Hatcher whistled low. “That’s hair-liftin’ country, ever there was one.”
“Told us he was going there,” Caleb explained.
“I don’t figger him to make it to Willow Valley,” Isaac said.
“Hard for a man to come through a hull winter and spring that far into Blackfoot country,” Hatcher stated. “Damn, but I’m glad to see
He looked round at those six faces. “It’s damned good to lay these ol’ eyes on you boys too.”
“Bet you’ve got some lies to tell, don’cha?” Elbridge asked.
“Me?” he replied with mock indignation. “Ever’thing I’m gonna tell you fellers tonight at the fire gonna be the God’s truth.”
“You hear that, Jack?” Caleb roared.
“Let’s see: I wrassled with ol’ Ephraim … aw, hell—I awready told you boys about that,” Scratch grumped. “And I damn near got killed by some greaser soldiers—”
“You and McAfferty done tol’t us about that too,” Rufus interrupted.
So Hatcher lazily looped an arm over Bass’s shoulder. “Just what the hell you done with yourself since we saw you last summer over on the Wind River?”
After fetching up his animals and turning them out to graze with those of Hatcher’s bunch, Scratch told them about his journey far north to the Judith, where he returned to the site of his bear mauling, regaling them with the story of his long walk to track the Crow horse thieves, finishing with his spring trapping on some tributaries of the Bighorn, his stop to soak aching bones at the tar springs before pushing on to the Wind River, climbing over South Pass to make his way to the Sandy—where he first spotted their dust cloud.
“You ain’t a very cautious bunch,” Bass told them, wagging his head with mock criticism.
“Just what the hell ye mean?” Hatcher growled. “We knowed we didn’t have to be careful when it was only a bone-headed horse’s ass named Titus Bass following us!”
“You owe me a drink for smearing my name in such a way, Jack Hatcher,” he grumbled, and held his cup up for more coffee as Rufus brought the pot around the fire. “And I don’t mean none of your bad coffee neither.”
