graying of that hair hanging from his brow.
“Ain’t getting old,” Hatcher declared. “Just getting gray earlier’n most, Titus.”
“Sometimes … it feels like old,” Bass explained as he peered at himself in the mirror, examining his first wrinkles, the spread of those deeply furrowed crow’s-feet.
“Chirk up, friend!” Jack cheered. “Why, ye got plenty to bark about this night!”
Isaac leaped in front of Bass, there between Scratch and Hatcher, grinning wildly. “Don’t you figger it’s ’bout time to punch some holes in Titus’s ears?”
“A damned fine idee!” Hatcher roared.
“P-punch some holes in my ears?”
“Hang some purties from ’em,” Rufus said, leaning in to tap his earrings with a fingertip.
“Y-you said … a hole?”
“Get me my awl!” Hatcher bellowed, ignoring Titus completely.
Scratch nearly came off the log as Rufus whirled away. “Your awl?”
“I could do it with a needle, Scratch,” Hatcher said, stepping right up beside Bass to grab hold of Bass’s earlobes, tugging on them to turn Titus toward the light. “But a needle makes it a round hole, ye see?”
“Which means it takes longer to heal,” Caleb explained.
Hatcher nodded. “We’ll get some glover’s needles from the trader this summer: they got three sides filed on ’em like a awl.”
“Awright,” Titus replied with no small measure of relief. “L-let’s just wait till we got the proper needle —”
“But don’cha wanna have it done on the night ye killed that red nigger what took yer hair two years back?” Jack asked.
Everyone came to an immediate stop around him, turning to look his way, expectantly awaiting his answer.
Clearing his throat nervously, Scratch explained, “It’s a mighty fine thing you wanting to celebrate with me —”
Solomon hollered, “Birthdays too!”
“But I ain’t so sure ’bout putting holes in my ears—”
“Nothing to it,” Jack assured. “Why, ye had bigger holes shot in you with G’lena lead, bigger holes poked in yer hide by Injuns. Hell—don’cha ’member?”
“By jam,” Isaac said. “We can hang some wires in ’em!”
“Maybeso Scratch don’t wanna,” Caleb came up to say, patting a hand on Bass’s shoulder protectively. “S’awright—we can just wait till ronnyvoo an’ do it.”
“No,” Titus answered of a sudden. “By Jehoshaphat’s drawers: let’s punch them two holes!”
As if a horn of powder had gone off, there was a flurry of frantic motion as Rufus returned with the awl held aloft triumphantly. Hatcher began giving instructions while he stuffed the awl’s point down in the hot coals for a few minutes. Elbridge brought over a scrap of oiling rag to lay over the shoulder while they punched through Bass’s flesh. And Solomon went off to fetch a small coil of brass wire out of his plunder.
“Cut me two pieces,” Jack explained to Solomon as he returned. “Not too long neither.”
In minutes the others were ready, all of them crowding in on either side of Hatcher to get themselves a firsthand look at the operation on one of the ears.
“Turn this way,” Hatcher instructed, tugging on the right ear to turn Bass’s head.
Elbridge draped that old piece of oiling cloth over the right shoulder beneath the ear where Hatcher was pinching the lobe tightly between thumb and forefinger.
“Damn—how much you gonna hurt me like that?” Scratch growled, rolling his eyes back to try peering at Jack’s hand.
“I don’t pinch it like this,” Hatcher explained, “it’s gonna hurt worse when I punch the hole.” He looked up at Isaac. “Got that chunk of pine from the woodpile for me?”
Simms handed him a small sliver of kindling wood about six inches long and some two inches wide.
Jack held it near the tip of Bass’s nose momentarily. “This here pine’s good and soft, Scratch.”
His brow knitted suspiciously. “What you use it for?”
“Gonna put it ahind yer ear like this,” he answered, slipping the flat piece of kindling behind the lobe. “I do this so yer hide don’t tear on the backside. Keeps that skin flat when I’m punching through.”
“Y-you ain’t gonna tear my skin, are you?”
“Eegod! I done this more times’n I can ’member.” Hatcher turned to Simms. “Time to make some blood, boys. Gimme the awl, Isaac.”
Simms bent and retrieved the awl from the glowing coals. He swiped it free of ash across his longhandle sleeve, then blew on it for good measure.
“Them ashes don’t hurt nothing,” Caleb declared. “They’re cleaner’n most anything.”
Hatcher took the awl from Isaac. “Gonna punch the hole now, Scratch.”
“Awright. Go right on ahead.”
Looking at Fish to see that he held the two short sections of wire, Jack delicately placed the awl’s sharp point at the center of Bass’s earlobe. Only then did he move the fingers he had been using to pinch the lobe and numb all feeling from the tissue.
Although he did feel the awl’s point penetrate the lobe, Scratch heard the sound of the piercing more than he felt it.
“You hit it center, Jack,” Caleb said with approval.
“Damn if I don’t always hit center,” Hatcher replied. “Here. Gimme a wire.”
Jack passed the awl off to Isaac and took from Solomon a short length of thick brass wire the trappers employed for making a variety of repairs around camp: all the way from wrapping about cracked wrists and forestocks on their rifles to making strong, long-lasting repairs to saddles and other tack where sinew would likely break down and unravel.
“Isaac, set that awl back to the coals for me,” Hatcher instructed as he seized the short piece of wire near its end.
After wiping off a little blood that oozed from the new hole, Hatcher carefully poked the wire through to the back side. Quickly he bent the wire into a crude hoop without tugging on the lobe too much, then looped and twisted the ends back on themselves so that the hoop wouldn’t be falling out by any accidental rubbing.
“How’s that feel?” Jack asked as he began to pinch the left ear, nudging Bass’s head in the opposite direction toward the firelight.
“Don’t feel much of a thing,” Bass confessed, surprised.
“Awl,” Hatcher said as Elbridge dragged the cloth off the right shoulder and draped it over the left.
“He’s sure gonna be one pretty nigger!” Gray declared.
Hatcher placed the awl tip against the earlobe right where he wanted to make the hole. “Shit! Ain’t no pair of goddamned brass ear wires gonna make this mud-ugly son of a bitch into a pretty nigger!”
He rolled his eyes up at Jack. “Who you calling mud-ugly?”
Hatcher punched the awl through the lobe into the soft pinewood stop, yanked the awl out, and when he had handed it off, took the second piece of wire and slipped it through to loop it off. Then he stepped back, cocking his head from this side to that, back and forth, first inspecting one ear, then the other.
“A right fine job, even if I do say so my own self. Get Scratch that mirror again.”
He gently touched the brass wires that dangled from both ears while Rufus brought up the mirror. Turning it toward the light while he twisted about the log, Bass gazed at one ear in astonishment, then turned aside to inspect the other ear, his grin beginning to grow within that gray-striped beard.
“Well, Mad Jack Hatcher,” he declared, showing nearly all his teeth in glee, “you said you couldn’t—but you sure did make this mud-ugly nigger one purty feller.”
Through the heads and shoulders of the other trappers Bass again spotted Rowland squatting at the far side of the fire, scuffing up small clouds of dirt with a peeled stick he used to dig at the ground near his feet.
“Say, Johnny,” Scratch said, “don’t you think I look real purty now?”
“I s’pose,” Rowland mumbled so quietly, his words almost went unheard against the sough of the wind in the trees and the crackle of their fire.
