“Watch that Neegra!” Felix Warren bawled as Hezekiah rose to his feet.
“I’ll kill the black nigger myself, Phil,” Pete Harris offered.
“Just keep Bass out of it till I’ve cut this black-assed bastard into li’l red pieces.”
As he slowly withdrew his own knife from his belt, Christmas asked, “He really good with a knife, Titus Bass?”
“Dunno, Hezekiah. Never see’d much fight in the man,” Bass goaded, hoping his words might well prod Thompson into a blind lather. “He’s always give up when it’s come down to real fighting.”
“G-give up?” Thompson squealed like a stuck pig, twisting his big knife this way and that in the firelight.
“Always let others do your fighting for you, ain’cha, Thompson!” Titus needled.
“Gonna kill you my own self here an’ now—”
As the tall white man started toward Bass standing at the left side of the fire pit, Christmas surprised everyone by suddenly shoving Titus aside. That muscular heave sent Scratch sprawling into the legs of some bystanders as Hezekiah sprang into what open ground lay between the two white men—landing in a crouch, his skinning knife out before him. A weapon only half the size of Thompson’s huge butcher’s blade.
The trapper stopped, then a wicked smile slowly came across his face as he lumbered forward, feinting first this way, then that, side to side as he slowly advanced.
“Hezekiah—no!” Bass cried out in desperation as more of the California Indians appeared at the edge of the light.
Dick Owens bellowed, “Kill ’im, Phil!”
With a wild lunge, Thompson made a wide swipe with the butcher knife. Christmas vaulted backward as the white man’s arm shot past in a blur, angling up the tip of his smaller knife so that it raked the underside of Thompson’s forearm. With an anguished gasp, the trapper turned the wound over to inspect it there by the firelight, his eyes narrowing less in pain than in growing fury.
“Awright, you black sack of assholes,” he grumbled. “You want me kill you first so bad—”
But Thompson was interrupted and kept from moving from that spot when Bill Williams bolted forward, pistol in hand. The instant the muzzle was jammed against Thompson’s ribs, the trapper’s mouth stopped moving. Nothing more than a round, wide hole in Thompson’s face as his eyes glared down at the pistol and the hand that held that weapon.
“Leave ’im go, Solitaire!” Smith demanded. “This ain’t none of our goddamn business.”
“Drop the knife, Phil,” Williams ordered, ignoring his partner.
Smith stepped closer in the next heartbeat. With his hand on his own pistol and a harsh edge to his voice, he said, “Maybeso I didn’t make it so clear, Bill. I said this weren’t none of our business.”
That’s when Williams finally turned to glare at Smith. “I’m making it my business, Peg-Leg. You got a problem with that, then you can take it up with me soon as I blow a goddamn hole in Thompson’s lights.”
“Y-you taking sides in something ain’t your affair,” Thompson hissed at Williams.
“He’s right, Solitaire,” Smith warned. “You’re coming down on the wrong side of things here. I ain’t gonna let you take the Neegra’s side on this.”
Pulling a pistol from his belt, Scratch declared, “Peg-Leg, it’s Thompson on the wrong side all the way ’round. I won’t stand for no man—Thompson or
“You think hard on that, Peg-Leg,” Williams advised. “You an’ Thompson ’bout to pull some soft-brained stunt. A damn fine way to thank the man what brung all these Injuns to help us throw back the greasers.”
“They even saved your miserable life, Thompson,” Bass growled.
“I wanna see your blood soaking into the dirt under my feet, Titus Bass,” the trapper growled, twisting his big knife this way and that in the air.
“G’won back to your fire,” Williams ordered.
“Now, dammit! I told you, Solitaire,” Smith snarled. “I’m leading this outfit too an’ I say Thompson don’t have to go nowhere—”
Ignoring his partner, Williams interrupted by saying, “Told you go back to your fire, Thompson. Now get!”
For a moment, Thompson glared down at the pistol pressed into his ribs, then into Williams’s face. Finally …“Awright.”
As he turned on his heel, Thompson roughly shoved Bill’s pistol aside, then slid the butcher knife back into its rawhide sheath.
Williams peered over at Smith. “Spit it on out, Peg-Leg. Like a mouthful of hornets—’pears you got some trouble with me.”
“Wasn’t none of yours to—”
“I made it mine.”
Titus took a step closer to Smith. “Sounds to me you don’t figger we owe our lives to Hezekiah Christmas?”
The one-legged trapper peered at the tall Negro with growing disdain. “Don’t owe nothing to none of these red niggers,” he grumbled. “ ‘Specially don’t owe a thing to no black-assed renegade run off to live in the blanket with these Digger Injuns.”
Bass watched Smith pivot away on his wooden pin. “Don’t understand you, Peg-Leg.” He waited until the redheaded trapper stopped and looked over his shoulder at him before he said, “We just come out of Californy with the biggest herd anyone ever stole … so we should be having us a hurraw right about now ’stead of fixin’ to kill a friend what came to—”
“That black son of a bitch ain’t no friend of mine!” Thompson roared from the nearby fire.
“Last I’ll say is that son of a bitch and his red niggers better be turning back where they come from afore first light when we push on,” Smith warned.
Just as Titus was opening his mouth to speak, Christmas beat him to it by saying, “We turning back, that’s for sure. That desert down there ain’t fit for the likes of man or horse, neither one. I ain’t gonna waste the life of one of my men to help your sorry white asses from here on out. Come morning—you won’t have to worry none ’bout Hezekiah Christmas and his
Smith dragged the back of a hand beneath his nose in a gesture of real disdain. “Make sure you ain’t here come sunrise.” With that said, he returned to the other fire where he stood with his back to Williams and the rest.
“I go bed down out there with my men,” Christmas quietly told Titus.
“You’re welcome to sleep here with us—”
“No, we ain’t welcome here with any of you,” Hezekiah interrupted, beginning to step away.
Bass caught his bare, brown arm. “Promise me you won’t leave afore we said our farewells.”
Christmas’s eyes flicked aside to stare over Bass’s shoulder at the distant fire where Smith and Thompson stood among like-minded men. He finally gazed at Scratch. “Come morning, we’ll say our good-byes … one more time, Titus Bass.”
Scratch awoke with a start, twitching as the long arm locked around his neck. Sensing the pressure of the butcher’s knife’s sharp edge press against the bottom of his windpipe there just below the muscular arm that imprisoned his head.
“How’s it feel to know this gonna be the last breath you ever take on earth, Titus Bass?”
He stared up into the dimly lit face of Philip Thompson, watching the firelight and shadow flicker across the cheekbones, the cruel curve of the lips as the man gleefully sneered down at Bass.
“You’re a cockless woman, Thompson,” he cursed, raspy with the sharp pressure against his throat. “Sneaking up on a sleepin’ man so it can’t be no fair fight.”
“Gonna cut your throat,” Thompson promised. “Like shooting a mad wolf. Don’t have to be no fair fight to kill a mad wolf.”
When Scratch slowly started to raise his right hand, he felt Thompson shove down on his throat with the knife, sensed the sharp edge press into the skin.
“I’ll cut you afore you get that damned hand in the air,” Thompson vowed. “Just want you be lookin’ into my face when I split you open … so I can watch you die—”
