of falling stars, and you wouldn’t stop bawling for your mother or me, so this man poured water on your head till you shut right up.”
“He poured water on your head?” one of the young boys repeated with a smirk.
Titus glanced at the boy and said, “It’s a ol’ Injun trick. They can’t have babies crying and squawking to alert any enemies, so they teach all their young’uns not to cry out. Ever’ time they make a noise, them babies get water poured on their heads so the young’uns learn to hush real quick.”
Turning to his father, that young boy gushed, “He really did pour water on Joshua’s head, Pa?”
“Come on over here, Ezekiel,” Paddock said to the youngster smirking at Joshua.
“So you’re named Ezekiel?” Scratch asked, dropping to one knee. “How old are you, son?”
He glanced up at his father. Josiah nodded. Ezekiel looked squarely at the stranger and held out his hand. “I’m nine years old, sir.”
“Sir? Sir? Why, will you listen to that?” Bass cried. “This boy’s got better manners than his ol’ man ever did! Ezekiel, remind me to tell you some evening the story how your father come to run across me in the mountains. He wasn’t at all the sort to practice a lick of good manners back in them days. Well, now—I’m mighty pleased to meet you, Ezekiel. Do folks call you Ezekiel?”
The boy cleared his throat and declared, “Only my parents, sir. My mother and father. All my friends call me Zeke.”
“Zeke, is it?” Titus rose to his feet and looked at Josiah. “You gone and named your boy after my dog?”
“A dog?” Ezekiel squeaked in disbelief.
“They named Ezekiel after a dog!” squealed Zeke’s older sister as she started giggling.
“No, son,” Josiah assured with a chuckle. “I always been partial to that name. It’s a good name, a strong name too. That’s why we gave it to you.”
Then Scratch explained, “I had a dog named Zeke back when your father an’ me was runnin’ the mountains, I want you to know.”
“Ol’ Zeke,” Paddock said wistfully. “I remember that gray mutt now. Rescued him from a waterfront dogfight in Saint Louis, didn’t you? Then we brung him west, all the way to the mountains with us that spring.”
“Damn, if we didn’t,” Titus said softly, the memory stabbing him of a sudden after all these years.
“Where is ol’ Zeke? He lope down to Taos with you, Scratch?”
Swiping a gnarled finger beneath his nose, Bass cleared his throat and said, “Zeke’s … he’s gone, Josiah. Been some years now. B-blackfoot kill’t him sometime back.”
Waits-by-the-Water stepped up to her husband’s side to explain, “The dog, follow Blackfoot. Blackfoot come took me, me and Magpie too. Dog go follow Blackfoot.”
Josiah shook his head, not able to understand, so Bass explained, “Those black-hearted sonsabitches come an’ stole my wife and my li’l daughter one winter. I didn’t know it, but Zeke took off ahead of me, followin’ that war party, hanging on their back trail till they shot ’im with a arrow. Damn poor way for that critter to die … suffering like he done.”
“You caught ’em, didn’t you?” Josiah asked. “I know you made ’em pay for what they done to your family. To Zeke.”
“Damn right, I made ’em all pay, Josiah. You know I ain’t the kind to leave no nigger standin’ when I got my dander up.”
Paddock laid a hand on Bass’s shoulder. “He was a damn good dog to the end, Scratch. Just the way we knowed he’d be afore we put Saint Louis behind us. I always figured he’d lay his life down for you or yours one day.”
Titus swiped a tear that had spilled from one eye and said, “He was a damn fine dog. Better a dog’n I ever deserved, I’ll tell you.”
Paddock turned to Ezekiel and explained, “So if you want to think you were named after a brave and big- hearted, ol’ gray dog named Zeke—then so be it, son. Because that was one special damned dog.”
Wiping another tear away in remembrance of the old cur, Scratch agreed, “That’s right. Zeke’s a fine, fine name for a young man like yourself.”
Ezekiel grinned, looking up at his father. “Don’t you see? You just give me ’nother reason why you and mother gotta call me Zeke instead of Ezekiel.”
“All right, Zeke it is,” and Josiah tousled his young son’s hair.
Of a sudden Titus remembered a dark face from the shadowy past. His eyes widening as he wheeled on Josiah, he asked, “Where’s that Neegra we brung here to Taos with us? The one we saved from the Pawnee —”
“Isaiah Bass?” Josiah spoke the name. “You recollect how he took your name the day you rode north outta Taos?”
“Isaiah Bass,” he repeated that name softly. “Claimed he was gonna work with you setting up your shop here.”
“Isaiah did just that,” Josiah explained. “Stayed on for a couple years, anyway—afore he come to me one day, asking to take his leave.”
“His leave? Goin’ where? For to do what?”
“Lighting out for Fort Hall with some traders hauling goods up north. For the first time since we brought him to Taos in thirty-four, Isaiah told me how bad he wanted to find a place where folks weren’t so mean to him, like the Mexicans had been.”
“These greasers made it hard on Isaiah, him bein’ a Neegra?”
Paddock nodded. “So I outfitted him and sent the man off with them traders,” Josiah declared. “Last I’ve seen of him.”
“Damn shame these greasers run him off with their ways. Isaiah was a good man.” Scratch cleared his throat, blinked, and said, “So … tell us who these other young’uns are, Josiah—them standing back there with such good manners.”
Paddock went on to introduce his oldest daughter, Naomi, who he explained was some eleven and a half years old; then his youngest daughter, Charity, who was seven and a half years old; and finally, while Looks Far stepped away to take care of a customer, Josiah introduced their youngest.
“Come up here, boy,” he asked. Positioning the short youngster right in front of his legs, Josiah announced, “This here’s Titus Mordecai Paddock. He’ll soon be four years—”
“T-titus Mordecai Paddock?” Scratch echoed.
“Yes,” Josiah answered quietly. “I give him Mordecai for a middle name because he was the fella—”
“I know,” Scratch interrupted. “The fella what you came to the mountains with. The one died on you that first winter.”
“Mordecai was the one helped me get to the mountains,” Paddock explained, gently patting the small child on the tops of his shoulders.
Scratch beamed. “An’ Titus? How come you give ’im my name?”
The boy twisted slightly, gazing up intently at his father who towered above him. “You named me after this old man, Pa?”
“Yes. You were named after the most important man in my life, son. I expect you always to remember that. This here’s the man who saw to it I lived through lots of things that would’ve killed lesser men.”
Josiah sank to one knee and gathered his four-year-old in both arms. “Truth is, Titus—if it hadn’t been for this old man here … I’d never been alive to raise you.”
29
They completed introductions all around, both sets of children standoffishly sizing up their counterparts as all youngsters are prone to do. Then Looks Far called her eldest over to her, unknotting the string of a canvas apron around Joshua’s waist.
“You take our old friends to the house. Move your tick and Ezekiel’s too—get them out of your room and into Naomi’s to give our guests a place to sleep.”
