wouldn’t talk about it—claimed that he’d always counted on God to watch his backside agin’ the devil.”
“Not a word of what hoo-doo spooked him, eh?” Caleb asked.
“Nary a peep did we pull outta him,” John explained dolefully. “All the way down to Taos that fall, I don’t recall the nigger sleeping much at all.”
“How’s a man get by ’thout any sleep?” Scratch asked with a yawn.
“All I can tell you is on our trip south that white-headed nigger was awake when I closed my eyes ever’ night, and he was awake when I opened my eyes again come morning.”
Skeptically, Scratch asked, “Awake, doing what?”
“Just looking up at the sky near all the time, moving his lips like he was talking to somebody, keepin’ a tight hold on his Bible.”
“That’s spooky right there,” Hatcher declared.
“He packed that Ol’ Bible along in his possibles ever since I knowed him. Never saw him pull it out much,” Rowland explained. “But after that night when he come back with his head turned white, McAfferty was one to keep that saddle-worn Bible right in his hand or laying by his side … ever since.”
“McAfferty sounds to me like a man what got hisself spooked but good!” Bass observed.
Hatcher agreed, “Right from the very first time I laid eyes on him down to Taos, I knowed in my bones there was something a mite odd about that child.”
“Yep,” echoed Solomon. “Young as he was—to have his hair turn like it did.”
“Don’t matter how young a feller is when hoo-doos reach out an’ grab hold,” Rowland protested, stretching out his arm, making a claw of his fingers. “Hoo-doos gonna leave their mark on you.”
Bass snorted. “Sounds to me like you believe in ghosts your own self, Johnny.”
“How ’bout it, boys? Any of ye see’d any of McAfferty’s hoo-doos yer own selves when ye was with him?” Hatcher added.
Shaking his head, Wood said, “I ain’t never seen none for myself … but I rode many a mile, and many a moon, with Asa McAfferty. I saw what become of a man who did see a hoo-doo. A man what see’d a Ree Injun rattle shaker’s hoo-doo!”
“Damn! If that don’t give me goose bumps the way Johnny’s talking!” exclaimed Isaac Simms, rubbing both of his forearms as if he had just suffered a sudden chill.
“Shit!” roared Elbridge Gray. “Johnny’s got you jumping at shadows now too!”
Hatcher turned to Rowland, asking, “Whatever come of McAfferty that winter we rode back to Taos, John?”
At that moment in the timber above their protected valley, a wolf raised its voice to the clear, starlit autumn sky.
All nine of them turned and listened as the morose howl drifted away slowly, the sound swallowed by the utter, black immensity of that night.
After a bit of reflection Rowland answered, “Like I said, he didn’t figger to join up with Young or with Robidoux’s outfit. Hell, truth was both of ’em made it real plain that they didn’t want him along come spring.”
“So he go north with another outfit?” Scratch inquired.
“No,” Rowland answered. “Near as I know, he never looked for a bunch to trap with after that. Like he knowed others down that way was talking about his hoo-doos that winter, like he knowed there wouldn’t be a man wanted to trap with him.”
Rufus asked, “What happened to him?”
“Dunno,” John stated. “I heard tell he up and pulled out of Taos late two winters ago. There in Mexico one day. Gone the next.”
Wood asked, “By hisself?”
“Yup. I heard he was all on his lonesome.”
“Damn,” Hatcher grumbled. “Here I was first thinking he become a strange goat … an’ now I’m feeling a mite sorry for this McAfferty. Feel sorry for a man what no one wants around.”
“How ’bout you, Johnny?” Elbridge asked. “Would you want to trap with McAfferty now?”
Shaking his head emphatically, Rowland answered, “Not a whore’s chance in Sunday meeting I’d ever travel the same trail with that one. Something ’bout him killing that rattle shaker, something ’bout that ol’ rattle shaker’s hoo-doo medicine made McAfferty go … go real soft in the head.” Then with a sudden, uncontrollable shudder of his body, John added, “This coon’ll stay as far away from that crazy bastard as I can.”
“He’s trouble,” Rufus added.
“Nawww, not like he’s a bad sort,” Rowland explained. “Just that … well, let’s say trouble follers on his bachtrail ever since the rattle shaker’s hoo-doos come after him. Way I see it: McAfferty’s gonna have trouble dogging him the rest of his days, for here on out.”
“Man’s got enough to worry about in Injun country,” Solomon declared. “He don’t have to take on a partner what’s been turned soft in the head.”
“So how ’bout you, Hatcher?” Bass inquired with a grin. “You ain’t gonna get soft in the head an’ keep us here till all the passes outta this valley are closed in, are you?”
“Nawww,” Jack replied. “I figger we each have us one more turn at camp keeper—five days more—and we’ll get on outta here.”
“To Taos!” Kinkead roared with renewed enthusiasm.
“Damn right,” Hatcher answered. “We push on over the high side and make for the mud-house Mexican settlements.”
“Ah! Women got skin the color of smoked leather,” Isaac Simms growled, a hunger glistening in his eyes.
Rufus Graham agreed, “And Workman’s likker, clear as a summer sky and as strong as the kick of a mule.”
“I’m half-froze for corn an’ beans,” Caleb Wood said wistfully, then licked his lips. “Don’t make me no never-mind that their bread is flat as it can be—it’s still bread to this here starvin’ nigger!”
“I ain’t had me no greaser bread since we put Taos at our rumps!” Rowland grumbled.
“This here nigger can’t wait to get me some of that greaser tobaccy,” explained Elbridge Gray. “How ’bout you, Jack? What you wanna get when we shine in Taos?”
“Music … music I don’t have to make for everyone else,” Hatcher explained, looking up at the cold sky dreamily. “I wanna listen and dance to such music them greasers play … while’st holding my arm round the waist of a thin gal or a plump one—hell, it don’t make no matter to me! My, my, my: how I look forward just to spin a woman to some music and look down at her purty face, seein’ right there and then in those eyes that she wants this here child to plant his wiping stick atween her legs.”
“Stand back, you damned greasers!” Rowland shouted to the heavens. “Bow your brown heads to American free men come riding in from the mountains! Get back you damned
7
With each shrinking day Hatcher’s brigade pushed man and beast alike from the first gray stain of predawn until past the coming of slap-dark, putting behind them every mile they could—every man jack anxious for Taos.
Halting at midday only to water the animals, the trappers doggedly pressed on as the winds grew stronger and the snows fell deeper, like mules with the scent of a home stall strong in their nostrils. Grown restless around their night fires, where they began to talk more and more of the Taos valley, more and more of the spicy food and heady liquor and that strong native tobacco. And as the men pulled their blankets and robes about them with the dropping temperatures, they spoke each night of the dusky women and that particular fragrance of Mexican skin.
“Not like no Injun woman I ever knowed,” Caleb Wood advised Titus Bass.
Hatcher snorted. “An’ sure as hell like no white farmer’s gal back to the settlements.”
