Crack in the Sky

have enthralled and captivated far-flung frontier congregations and revival-camp meetings, without a doubt.

“Where in these hills ye been hiding yerself lately?” Jack inquired.

“Been up to Flathead country. Where I run onto Jackson’s men when they was riding south to find Sublette.”

Solomon slapped McAfferty on the back. “From the looks of it you still got all your purty white hair, Asa! And here I thort Flathead land was up there where them Blackfeets get a chance to lift that hair from you!”

Asa nodded, his dark eyes merry in that face starkly tanned against the radiant white beard. Then those eyes landed momentarily on the stranger who stood back from the others, observing the reunion of old friends.

“Up there near troubled land was I, that be God’s truth! ’And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.’” McAfferty said, quoting Biblical scripture. Then he looked at Hatcher, saying, “Who this be, Jack?”

They all turned and found Bass standing back, waiting alone.

Hatcher vigorously wagged his arm. “C’mon over here, Scratch. Want ye meet this nigger what use to ride with this bunch.”

“Scratch, he called you?” McAfferty asked as he held out his strong hand.

“Titus Bass,” he explained. “Scratch just the name what got hung on me not long after I come to the mountains.”

Asa winked at Caleb. “I’ll bet there’s a story there to tell, eh, Mr. Bass?”

Titus grinned. “Nothing more’n a bad case of the gray backs I had to get rid of.”

“Wait—” McAfferty said suddenly, his eyes flicking this way and that, the merry smile disappearing. “Where’s … ah, hell—they ain’t gone under, have they? Not Matthew and Johnny Rowland?”

Isaac spoke up, “Them two still kicking!”

Asa cranked his head around the others. “Where have they gone? Off on some errand?”

“Ain’t with us no more,” Hatcher explained.

McAfferty’s eyes narrowed. “Not rubbed out?”

“No,” Caleb remarked. “Both of ’em stayed down to Taos.”

McAfferty asked, “Women?”

“Yeah, women,” Rufus answered with that knowing nod to his head.

His own eyes half-closed, McAfferty pronounced, “This gentler sex: what a curse they be to a man … and what a balm those sweet creatures are to all that ails us! ’For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.’”

“Asa—we had us some Snake women!” Rufus began. “Back at ronnyvoo in Snake country.”

“There’ll be more fornication here next day or so,” McAfferty declared.

Hatcher grinned. “Injuns coming?”

Asa nodded. “Flatheads was follering Jackson south. Likely make it a day or so behind us.”

“How many’s the lodge?” Solomon inquired.

“Enough to keep this bunch of hydrophobic wolves busy for some time!” McAfferty roared. “Least sixty … seventy lodges.”

“Whoooeee! Flathead girls!” Isaac sang.

McAfferty continued, “Jackson got word there was a big village of Snakes coming here to the valley too.”

“Gonna be some shinin’ times now!” Caleb cried.

“‘Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness,’” McAfferty snarled.

“Weren’t but a few gals on the Popo Agie,” Hatcher explained.

“That where Sublette opened up his likker kegs?” Asa inquired.

“Ain’t all that good on your tongue,” Rufus said. “But it can sure ’nough kick you in the head!”

“Sublette have any likker left him?”

“Near as I know,” Hatcher said, “he’s got him least half of what he brung out from St. Louie.”

McAfferty wiped some fingers across his lips. “I got me a hankering to end this longtime dry, boys. Sublette’s up to trading, is he?”

“Damn right he is,” Caleb said. “You got plews?”

“I got plenty of plews, Mr. Wood. ‘The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: He bringest low, and lifteth up.’”

Hatcher turned to Bass and gestured a thumb at McAfferty. “’Sides allays spouting his Bible talk, Asa here allays was one of the best for bringing flat-tails to bait. Why, hell—I’ll bet he’s almost good as you, Scratch!”

Asa asked, “This here new man that good, is he?”

“Notch or two better’n you ever was, Asa,” Caleb bragged.

“That so?”

“McAfferty allays was the best at finding prime beaver country too,” Jack continued. “Shame when ye up and decided ye was leaving us to ride out on yer own hook, Asa.”

Slowly tearing his measuring eyes from Bass, McAfferty stated, “Man goes where a man is called to go. And if the Lord calls him to come alone … a man must listen to the commandment of the Lord his God.”

“Damn—but you still preachify as purty as you ever did!” Elbridge cried in glee.

Hatcher laid an arm over Bass’s shoulder and asked him, “Don’t that oily tongue of his’n just make ye wanna ask Preacher McAfferty to bring hisself on out to yer place for dinner on church meeting day?”

“Dear Lord, ’Preserve me from those who would trouble met!’” Asa roared.

“So you camping with Jackson’s bunch?” Caleb asked.

“I go only where the breath of God leads,” McAfferty answered. “Usual’, that keeps me off on my lonesome.”

“Throw in with us for a few days,” Isaac suggested.

For a moment Asa looked them over; then his eyes landed on Bass. “Mr. Hatcher—you say this nigger’s better trapper than me?”

“That’s gospel in my book, McAfferty.”

The others muttered their agreement, and Caleb echoed, “The only man I ever knowed better’n you, white hair.”

“Awright then,” McAfferty confirmed. “I’ll camp with you boys for a few days … and see just what I can learn that makes this here Titus Bass the finest trapper any of you devil’s whelps ever see’d.”

In two more days it came to pass that the Flathead camp and a large village of Shoshone reached the pastoral valley where some 175 company men and free trappers had thrown up tents, lean-tos, and blanket shelters at the western foot of the Tetons. The Indians arrived right about the time that the renewed celebration was working itself into a genuine lather.

For better than a day now Sublette had had his kegs opened for trade beneath his canopies. Jackson’s Flathead brigade were as eager as any men could be to have themselves a real blow, and the company owners themselves rejoiced in this unexpected reunion.

Like so many others, both skin and free trappers, Titus Bass joined those who gathered in the shady grove where Jedediah Smith captivated his audience with tales of crossing the Mojave desert, the terrible blow of losing ten men to the treachery of those Mojave Indians, and dealing with the capricious Spanish who ruled that land from their Californio settlements and ranchos. Hour after hour he described his confrontations with the haughty and suspicious Monterey officials who kept his men under custody until ultimately releasing them upon Smith’s promise never to return to California. From there he described how they had hurried north, selling some of his furs to an American captain who anchored his ship in the Bay of San Francisco before Smith’s brigade continued its search for the mythical but famed Buenaventura River that was rumored to carry a man from the west slope of the mountains all the way to the great Pacific Ocean.

But along the southern coast of Oregon country,* Jedediah’s company clerk and men let down their guard and allowed a band of seemingly peaceful and childishly curious Kelawatset Indians into their camp one morning— only to be savagely set upon and brutally butchered as the warriors pulled knives, axes, and clubs from beneath their blankets. A lone man, Arthur Black, managed to escape into the forest with his wounds. In addition, due to the fact that they had been out of camp on some duty or another at the time, Smith and two others survived the attack.