“Hooraw, niggers!” Tom cried as he spun round and round a few times, pivoting on the peg as his axis. “Let’s hear you beller for bachelors!”
Hatcher guffawed, “Ain’cha a marryin’ man, Peg-Leg?”
“You’re full of vinegar and prickly juice, Mad Jack—if’n you think any mountain man is the marryin’ kind!”
Caleb Wood spun up, grabbing hold of Smith’s left arm to do-si-do two spins round with him, shouting in glee, “Not too many Injun womens got ’em a hankering to bed theyselves down with that peg leg of your’n, eh?”
Balancing on the peg for a moment, Smith gave his wooden leg a sound kick with his moccasin, declaring, “This here peg ain’t the only thing on Thomas L. Smith them Injun womens know will stay stiff and hard as a tree trunk all night long!”
“Listen to this here ol’ firecracker head!” Matthew Kinkead crowed. “Spouting like he was the answer to every woman’s prayers!”
Puffing out his chest like a prairie cock on the strut, Smith snorted, “The hell if I ain’t!”
“I damn well know ye’d have women prayin’, all right!” Hatcher said.
“Prayin’ for mercy!” Smith shouted. “I’m a hard-user on the womens, I am!”
“No, Thomas!” Jack replied. “They’re prayin’ ye’ll just stay away from ’em with that li’l willer switch of yer’n when a real man like me carries round a oak stump in his britches!”
“I swear, Mad Jack Hatcher—you go spreadin’ talk like that, why—I’ll sit down right here, unbuckle my wood leg, and take after you with it! Whup you like a poor man’s field hand—whup you about the head and shoulders!”
“Ye take yer peg off, Smith—ye’ll never stand no chance of catchin’ a sprightly fella like me!”
“I can move when I wanna,” Peg-Leg argued, then smiled hugely in that flushed face. “In the robes an’ out!”
Fish roared, “Ain’t no way you’re ever gonna catch a squaw, Tom—less’n she wants to be catched.”
“’Nough of ’em still want me to catch ’em!” Smith gasped, his face red with easy laughter. He held out the peg and bent his good leg, collapsing again to the grass, where he rolled onto his back to thrash around, screaming as if in a fit, “Oh, me—I’m dyin’ o’ thirst, boys! Hoo-yoo! I’m dyin’ o’ thirst! Rum me quick! Rum me!”
Hatcher scissored his legs so he stood directly over the man, his fiddle and bow tucked beneath his left arm, peering down as somber as a settlement undertaker. “Maybeso ye ought’n dig poor Tom his grave, fellers. He’s sure to die of thirst, don’cha see?”
With a small whimper Smith asked, “W-why, Jack?”
“We ain’t got us nary a drop of likker left in our camp!”
Smith bolted upright like he’d been gut-shot, his eyes gone wide. “You ain’t g-got no more l-likker in camp?”
“Mad Jack said it true!” Caleb declared.
His eyes glaring in anger mixed with disappointment, Smith sputtered, “T-then what the hell are you f-fellers so gay about?”
Solomon Fish waved an arm toward the mountains, explaining, “Tomorrow we’re off for the high country and our autumn hunt!”
“That’s all?”
Hatcher nodded. “That’s all I need to make me happy.”
“Where you going this year, Jack?” Smith prodded, and he relaxed back on an elbow.
Jack chuckled. “We ain’t none of us tellin’.”
“Awww, c’mon now,” Peg-Leg pleaded. “Don’t reckon to foller you anyways—”
“I can’t be sartin of that,” Hatcher grumped.
“You know I’m headed to Californy, Jack.”
Isaac Simms inquired, “What’s way yonder in Californy, Peg-Leg?”
“Dark-skinned womens.”
“Hell, child,” Elbridge argued, “they got dark-skinned women where we’re headed to winter up in Taos.”
Gazing at the sky, Smith got a wistful look in his eyes as he said, “Not like the dark-skinned womens I heard tell of live out to Californy.”
“Ain’t they Mexicans just like the folks down to Taos and Santy Fee?” asked John Rowland.
Wagging his head, Smith said, “No, sir. Them down that way just be poor Injun and greaser half- breeds.”
“So tells us what sort of dark-skinned women they got in California,” Hatcher demanded.
“Womens there got royal Span-yard blood in ’em.”
Rufus said, “That so?”
Peg-Leg nodded. “The truth of it. And I hear them gals is looking to show a good time to any American rides their way.”
Jack roared, “Hell, the womenfolk down to Taos show an American a mighty fine time, Tom!”
“You boys go and winter up to Taos now,” Smith advised. “As for me and my band—we’re headed for Californy to see just how hot them high-toned Span-yard gals can get when a outfit of real men come riding into their country!”
“Hell, the real men will be riding into Taos come this winter!” Hatcher roared as he propped the fiddle under his chin.
“Real men?” Smith asked, cocking his head to the side and grinning as he looked around him at each of Jack’s trappers. “Real men would’ve saved a last drink for their old friend, Peg-Leg Smith! Afore we all hit the trail!”
“Har!” Jack snorted. “Any man claims he has a real wood peg for a cock wouldn’t come beggin’ in my camp for no last drink!”
His face turning sad and downcast, Smith puffed out his lower lip and moped, “Looks like you found me out, boys! I ain’t got no hardwood cock that will pleasure a gal all night long.” Then immediately he grinned as he began
