but I wanna get me some more sleep.”
Eyes closed, he listened as Kinkead spoke low to the young woman. Then, without a single word from her, Bass felt soft fingers lightly touch his swollen cheek before they briefly squeezed his hand. And she was gone. It grew quiet as he heard the voices of the others move off. Bass shivered once in the growing cold, then quickly slipped off to sleep.
When next he awoke, Scratch found himself ravenous. Opening his eyes, he found the cavern still lit with a number of thick candles, the gray of dawn at the entrance to the cave no more than a thin sliver from where he lay. But he also discovered that the back of his head still throbbed mercilessly—worse even than when he had been scalped. Just beyond the room where they had placed him, he heard low voices.
It hurt too much to try raising his head, what with the way his neck and shoulder muscles protested, that wide band of painful stricture wrapping itself around his head like the jaws of a huge iron trap. Bass closed his eyes and welcomed the sleep that allowed him to leave the pain behind.
Sometime later the voices grew louder.
He awoke with a start, irritated at first that they weren’t letting him sleep any longer. Then he concentrated: slowly discerning the different voices, able to tell that they were angry.
“Hatcher!”
Oh, how it hurt to call out!
Those angry voices fell quiet as he shut his eyes, trying to squeeze off the throb in his head. Feet shuffled into the cavern.
“Scratch? Ye call me, Scratch?”
Looking up, Bass saw most of the faces around his bed. “Why you so all fired mad?”
At first no one answered.
Then Hatcher glanced at the others and eventually looked at Bass. “Goddamn Mexicans wanna come throw us out of the country.”
“But they ain’t,” Workman asserted.
“Willy here just come from town with Matthew,” Hatcher continued. “He heard from Padre Martinez that the soldiers and most of the folks in town was talking about coming out here to try flushing us out.”
“Flush us out?” Bass echoed. “They figger to kill us?”
“Sounds like it,” Matthew said. “But Mirabal and the padre wasn’t about to let ’em. Fire’s out for now.”
“Then … everything’s fine.”
“No,” Workman answered sadly. “None of you fellers can trade off your plews in town. Fact be, the governor wanted the padre to tell us that he could do all in his power to make sure no mob come out to kill us … but he couldn’t have us coming in to Taos no more this winter.”
“Means we gotta stay out here,” Caleb grumbled.
“That ain’t so bad, I s’pose,” Bass figured, relieved.
Solomon snorted, “What the hell use of a man coming to Taos if’n he can’t drink till he’s shit-faced drunk!”
“Or dance with the gals!” Graham shouted.
Elbridge roared, “And get his pecker soaked with poontang!”
Slamming a fist into an open palm, Hatcher growled, “Maybeso we just should’a kill’t our share of them greasers when we had us a chance and been done with it!”
Workman wagged his head. “From the sounds of things—you’d never got out of Mirabal’s house, you gone and done that.”
“What’s so bad ’bout them not letting us go into Taos no more this winter?” Scratch asked.
Caleb said, “We don’t go in—we can’t get all our plew traded off for supplies.”
It was quiet a moment before Workman replied, “Maybe you don’t need to trade all them plews.”
Hatcher guffawed. “With what we gonna get our truck and plunder for spring?”
“What you need?” the whiskey maker asked.
“Powder and lead!” Caleb answered. “I know we need that.”
“All right—see just how much you need,” Workman declared, something clearly going on between his ears. “I’ll see what I got here. See what I can get my hands on too.”
“We better have us some of that Mex coffee afore we head out,” Hatcher demanded, skepticism still on his face.
“What else?” Workman asked with growing intensity. And when the others began to suggest flints and wiping sticks, blankets and awls, the whiskey maker suddenly shushed them all and said, “I’ll tell you what, Jack. You boys figger all what you’re needing to get you through the spring hunt till ronnyvoo up north—maybe we can see you’re outfitted when you take off come the break of winter.”
Solomon knelt close to Bass and said, “They keep us outta town—looks like you ain’t gonna see that li’l senorita what’s sweet on you.”
Kinkead looked down at them. “I figger Scratch here’s part of our trouble too.”
“Bass?”
He started to raise his head to protest, but it hurt too damned much. From his pillow he demanded, “How I’m to blame for all this?”
“That were a fair fight, Matthew!” Hatcher suddenly leaped into the argument.
“That’s right, Matthew,” Elbridge said. “I see’d lots of men lose a eye—”
“Had to be
“So tell me what a man s’pose to do when a nigger’s trying to kill him?” Scratch asked.
“Bass here ain’t to blame for our troubles,” Caleb protested.
“’Course he ain’t,” Kinkead agreed, laying his big paw of a hand on Scratch’s shoulder. “But it’s for certain Mirabal hisself knows his daughter’s sweet on an American gringo—and that makes for a bad case of things, no matter what.”
Rufus asked, “Thort the governor liked us after we got his wife and daughter back from those Comanche?”
“He likes gringos when they help him out all right,” Kinkead declared. Then he slowly moved his eyes down to look at Bass. “But he don’t want no gringo in his family.”
Suddenly Hatcher burst out in laughter and finally bowed elegantly. “Here he is—his own self, boys!” he roared, then straightened and saluted. “This here’s Governor Mirabal’s new son-in-law!”
“I ain’t no such a thing!”
Elbridge got into the ribbing. “You’re sure ’nough caused us a heap a trouble: going off to court that man’s li’l girl!”
“Ain’t been courtin’ nobody!”
“Maybe you just better leave the womens alone,” Graham joked.
“I told you stupid niggers—”
“Speaking of women,” Hatcher said suddenly, quieting the rest. He turned quickly to Workman. “What the hell we gonna do for the rest of the winter here ’thout women?”
“Glory thunder!” Caleb roared as it struck him like a load of adobe bricks. “No women to dip my stinger in?”
Isaac grumbled, “See, Scratch? All your damned fault!”
“Hold it,” Workman hushed them, waving his arms. “Maybe I can get Louisa to bring some of her girls out here ever’ now and then.”
“Sure,” Caleb cheered. “We got the likker here!”
Then Solomon joined in, “And Willy’ll bring the womens!”
“Workman says he’s gonna round us up some plunder for the spring hunt too!” Hatcher added.
“Maybeso we’ll make a winter of it after all!” Elbridge agreed.
“But ain’t none of this my fault,” Bass protested. “Ain’t done nothing to make that Mex gal go sweet on me!”
“Hell, Titus Bass,” Hatcher said, laying a hand on Scratch’s shoulder, “I might be mad as a swarm of wasps at ye for making eyes at that woman—”
