“I thort it was you,” the homely man declared with a grin, holding out a bony paw to shake. “The nigger what’s called Scratch. Last saw you down to Taos.”
Nodding, Bass shook the strong, lean hand and said, “Shad, this here’s Bill Williams.”
“
“Ain’t none of ’em the truth,” Williams snapped. As suddenly he smiled hugely. “Then again, maybeso ever’ last one of ’em be the truth too!”
Scratch looked the old veteran in the eye and asked, “How you read the sign, Bill? Fat cow or poor bull? You figger the mountain trade ’bout to go under with Bridger heading east and all these here niggers running off with horses and traps they stole’t?”
Williams snorted. “Maybeso fur is done for a while. But beaver’s bound to rise, I allays say. If’n a man needs to, he can find hisself something to do till the plews are prime again.”
“What else is a child s’posed to do if’n he don’t trap?” Sweete demanded testily.
Regarding the tall man warily, Williams said, “You are a big chunk of it, now, ain’cha?” He put a finger to his temple. “Think on it—and maybeso you’ll come up with something to do till beaver comes back.”
“What you fixing to do, Bill?” Scratch asked.
“Me and few others been kicking round the idee of riding west for Californy—steal some Mex’can horses like I tol’t you.”
Sweete wagged his head. “Why horses?”
“Out here a nigger can buy ’em for a rich man’s ransom … or he can ride back east to get horses for hisself. So there might just be some real good money in it for a child who steals some horses in Californy what he can sell to the forts.”
“Mayhaps them greasers shoot your head off too,” Bass snorted, “you try riding off with their horses.”
“Them pepper beans?” Williams asked with sour laughter.
“Any man gets shot at enough,” Titus replied, “I figger the odds gotta mean he’s gonna get hit with a lead ball one day.”
“Ain’t a greaser gun made can hit me,” Williams boasted.
Turning to Sweete, Bass asked, “If you ain’t gonna steal Mex’can horses like Bill here—you gonna stay on with Drips’s brigade now that Bridger ain’t along?”
With a shrug Shadrach said, “Been thinking I might just head west a mite—work out of Fort Hall. Hear the British promise to treat Americans right on their prices for goods, on what they’ll offer for beaver.”
“Some ol’ partners of mine said they heard the same thing.”
“Goddamn them English!” Williams grumbled. “I’d steal ever’thing out from under ’em and burn down their posts a’fore I’d deal with John Bull!”
“Maybeso I figure to have me somewhere to sell my beaver when the Americans pull outta the mountains, ol’ man,” Sweete advised.
“There’s other posts,” Williams argued. “Don’t have to deal with them Englishers.”
“Fort Lucien?” Bass inquired. “St. Louis parley-voos own that’un.”
Williams shook his head emphatically, saying, “But the company don’t own that Vaskiss post on the South Platte. And they don’t run them others down in that country neither.”
“What others?” Titus asked.
“Some soldier named Lupton left the army to jump in the beaver trade year or two back,” Williams said. “’Side his, there’s two more on the Platte: Fort Jackson and Fort Savary—all of ’em trading with the Cheyenne and ’Rapaho.”
Titus asked, “Robes?”
“Beaver from white men, robes from redbellies,” Williams answered. “And now the Bents are offering top dollar for all the horses we can bring ’em. Californy or Injun—makes ’em no differ’nce.”
Sweete said, “All of them places over on the east side of the mountains.”
“And that can be a ride for a man what wants to have somewhere handy to trade his furs,” Bass observed. “Only reason I ever traded up to Tullock’s post at the mouth of the Tongue was I found myself up in that Crow country.”
Nodding, the old trapper said, “Ain’t whistling in the dark there, Scratch—but ary man what wants to stay in this here country can allays do his business on this side of the mountains.”
Sweete growled. “You just said you wasn’t giving none of your business to them English over at Fort Hall —”
“I ain’t talking ’bout Fort Hall, you idjit!” Bill snapped. “Ain’t either of you heard ’bout them two posts on south of here?”
Bass and Sweete glanced at one another before looking back at Williams.
“No doubt you two ignernt coons been spending too much of your time up in Blackfoot and Crow country!” the old man snorted. “Down near the mouth of the Winty is Robidoux’s post … and just northeast of there a leetle is Fort Davy Crockett.”
“Northeast, where?”
“Brown’s Hole. East side of the Green. Fort’s been there more’n a year … maybeso two year now this summer.”
“They in the beaver business?” Titus asked. “Got trade goods?”
“Them fellers all been trappers,” Williams declared. “So I figger they know how to treat a man fair. Better’n this goddamned company got this hull country by the balls—squeezing down so hard they’re choking the life right out of the beaver trade.”
Bass looked at Sweete. “I been there.”
“Brown’s Hole?”
Nodding, Scratch said, “Trapping might be fair in that country. Chances are a man won’t bump into too many Injuns. Maybeso we’d make a pair of it if’n you ain’t give up on the mountains—”
“I ain’t give up on the mountains!” Shad roared.
“Then you cogitate ’bout heading south with me to trap that Uinty country, go sniff out just how fair a man gets treated down to this Fort Davy Crockett.”
“I’ll think on it some,” Shad replied, screwing up his lips thoughtfully.
“You lemme know next day or so,” Bass said. “It ain’t like we got a whole lot of choices no more, Shad. There ain’t many ways for niggers like us to make our living. We don’t trap beaver—we can always turn to horse stealing like Ol’ Solitaire here … or turn back for the settlements.”
“I ain’t above stealing horses,” Shadrach Sweete admitted two days later when he walked over to Bass’s camp of a purpose. “But I don’t figger I’ll ever turn back for the settlements neither.”
“What’s that leave you, Shad?”
His merry eyes twinkled. “You fixing to keep chasing beaver?”
Titus nodded with a grin, knowing that Sweete had come to his decision. “For many a year now I always hankered to have me a look over the next hill. Time’s come to
When the Crow returned with the clean swaddling, Titus did the best he could to clean the boy for the first time in the better part of a day and a long winter night. After tossing the dirty scrap of blanket into the nearby brush, he swathed a clean strip over Flea’s genitals, rewrapped the blanket around the child’s body, securing the rawhide ties.
After pissing on the bushes and resaddling the three animals, they hung Flea’s crude cradle from Bass’s pommel and set off.
More than an hour later, when the sun rose briefly at the edge of a crimson earth, the whole basin was momentarily tinted with a pinkish hue. Within moments that dramatic dawn exhausted itself as the sun climbed into the low, snow-laden clouds. Once more the broad valley and the surrounding slopes were bathed in a cold pewter light.
He hoped the Blackfoot had made camp earlier than he had the evening before. And he prayed the enemy were slow in moving out this morning. But most of all he asked that the sky hold back that day—just one more day. What wind there was gusted out of the north with the sharp metallic tang of a hard snow on its way. Give them one more day to follow the tracks before the storm blew in and obliterated the war party’s trail. If the snow was held in
