she was safer in that Mexican town on the border of Comanche country than she was living at the edge of the Blackfoot domain.
Then again, that band might well be Nez Perce. A man couldn’t really tell from this distance. Not with all the dust raised by the teeming crowds in the Rocky Mountain Fur camp he was about to enter, a veritable town with its streets laid out among the shady trees, the grass trampled by hundreds of feet as groups came and went of some serious purpose.
“Got furs to trade with Sublette, do ye?”
Bass reined up, staring down at the face of an old companion.
“Elbridge?”
“Get down here and shake my paw, Titus Bass.”
Behind Gray the others streamed, a handful in all as Scratch leaped to the ground, dropping Samantha’s lead rope. Breathless when he finished hugging these dear old friends, done pounding backs and withstanding the blows of doubled fists hurled his way, he stood back and stared at the semicircle of their faces.
Dragging a hand beneath the dribble at the end of his nose, he sighed, “You ugly boys sure make a sight for these ol’ eyes.”
“So where’s that pretty wife of your’n?” Rufus Graham asked, his auburn hair just hinting at turning gray. He was missing those four front teeth, both top and bottom. “The gal you had roped to you last ronnyvoo finally get smart and run off with a good-looking man?”
“Naw,” Titus said with a big grin. “She’s back yonder to our camp, upstream. We had us a girl-child.”
“Merciful heavens! A girl?” Caleb Wood echoed.
“Purty as her mother,” Bass declared.
“God bless!” exclaimed Solomon Fish, rubbing the long ringlets of his blond beard. “Pray God saw to it the little child didn’t take after her homely pap!”
Bass suddenly looped an arm around Solomon’s neck and playfully rubbed the top of his mangy blond hair with a handful of knuckles before allowing the struggling man to go free.
“Where’s Wyeth?” Bass asked. “I heard tell when we come in yestiddy that the Yank was already in from the East.”
None of them answered at first, until the stocky Isaac Simms said, “He’s yonder. More’n a couple miles on down the creek. On past them Nepercy what’s camped close to Sublette’s tents.”
“That’s Sublette off yonder, eh?”
Caleb nodded. “He’s doing a handsome business.”
Of a sudden it struck Titus. “Why you boys camped in here with Rocky Mountain Fur? You ain’t thro wed in with the company men, have you?”
Wood toed the grass a moment before answering. “It ain’t been so good for us since losing … J-jack,” he said quietly.
Bass looked around at the others, most of whom did not meet his gaze. “Been two summers now, ain’t it, boys?”
Graham swallowed and answered, “Y-yeah. Two year, Scratch—since them god-blamed Blackfoot got him in the Pierre’s Hole fight.”
“But when I saw you fellers last summer on the Green, seemed you’d done fair for that first year ’thout Jack Hatcher in the lead,” Titus declared.
“The more we talked about it last ronnyvoo,” Elbridge explained, “the more we figured we ought’n try some new country up north when we pulled away from ronnyvoo.”
Solemnly, Isaac said, “But a man’d be stupid to ride north ’thout a brigade round him.”
“So you boys throwed in with one of the outfits, eh?” Bass inquired.
“Bridger’s, it were,” Caleb volunteered. “Fitzpatrick was going to the Powder, so we signed on with Bridger.”
Titus could see it written on their faces—how the toll of losing their leader had marked every man jack of them. No matter how they had spouted and spumed in protest at Mad Jack Hatcher, not a one of them was leader enough to take the reins and make an outfit of them once again. They were good men, hard-cased and veterans all. But they were followers still. No man could fault them for realizing that before every last one of them lost his hair.
“It’s a good thing,” Scratch told them, “for the easy beavers been took already. To go where the beaver still plays, a man needs to go in goodly numbers. Wise you boys chose to throw in with Bridger’s brigade.”
And he watched how his words visibly struck each one, bringing relief and smiles to eyes and faces.
“Where’s that Josiah, the young’un you brung with you to the Pierre’s Hole fight?” Simms asked.
“He was with you last year on the Green,” Rufus said.
Bass sucked down some wind. “Left him in Taos with his wife and boy, ’long with some trade goods to set up shop.”
Caleb eyed him. “You figger to be a trader now?”
With a wag of his head Titus answered, “Just Josiah. He’d tempted Lady Fate’s fickle hand enough while we rode together. Time was for me to give him his leave.”
Scratching the beginnings of his potbelly, Elbridge asked, “Who you riding with come autumn?”
“On my own hook, boys.”
“By jam—just you and the woman?” Isaac inquired.
“And our girl.”
“You ought’n throw in with us, Scratch,” Caleb observed.
“That’s right,” Gray said. “Bridger knows you. He ain’t got nothing ’gainst a man packing a squaw along.”
With a shake of his head, Titus quieted their suggestions. “Time’s come for me to go it alone. Moseying with a brigade’s gonna be the best for most fellas. But there’s hard-assed pricknoses like me what’re better off on their lonesome. Thanks for the asking. If I was to lay down my traps with any bunch, it’d be you boys … and only you boys.”
Solomon asked, “Got time for some whiskey?”
Titus looked at the five slowly, his eyes narrowing. “You figger this here nigger got stupid in the last year? Course I got time for some whiskey and some stories. Then I ought’n be on my way to find Wyeth.”
“But Billy Sublette’s got his trade tents just past the bend in the creek,” Caleb said. “Hell, he’s so close I could throw a rock and likely hit one of his whiskey kegs!”
“No thanks,” Bass said as he turned around and took up both the reins to the horse and Samantha’s lead rope. “From what I heard ’bout the underhanded jigger-pokey Sublette pulled on Wyeth—I don’t care to have nothing more to do with Billy Sublette.”
“So I s’pose you’ve heard there ain’t no more Rocky Mountain Fur?” Isaac asked.
“But we’re still working for Bridger’s company,” Rufus explained.
“From the sounds of things,” Bass said, “Fitzpatrick and Bridger can call their company what they want … but Billy Sublette still owns ’em and calls their tune.”
Elbridge suddenly placed the flat of his hand against Bass’s chest to bring Scratch to a halt. “Then I take it you’re a nigger what won’t drink none of Billy Sublette’s whiskey.”
Titus thought on it a moment, careful that his face remained gravely pensive. “Is Sublette’s whiskey as good an’ powerful as it ever was?”
“Damn right it is!” Caleb roared.
“Then I ain’t above accepting a free drink of that low-down thieving Sublette’s whiskey,” Bass declared boldly, “not when I get me the chance to drink that whiskey with the likes of you boys!”
*
3
