The old trapper nodded. “Up the Blue a ways, afore we hit the mouth of the Uncompawgray. Should be there afore sundown tomorrow.”
After all they’d endured, that was about the best damned news. Had there been any whiskey in their camp that summer night, there’d been one hell of a collection of drunks sleeping off their revels when the order came to roll out the next morning. As it was, the trappers could only look forward to reaching Robidoux’s post, where they were certain to find some Mexican whiskey or sweet fruit brandy, not to mention a few Ute squaws and some greaser gals who just might be convinced to cozy up with a lonely fella gone too long in the desert without some soft and curvaceous companionship.
Early that next afternoon, all fifteen were strung out on both sides of the herd behind Williams, who rode at the head of the ragged column, leading the last of their broodmares.
“Closer I get to whiskey,” Jake Corn announced as he eased up beside Titus, “the thirstier I get—”
The two of them jerked at the low rumble of gunfire reverberating from the mesa ahead.
“That was just over the ridge,” Bass declared.
Another gunshot echoed.
Far ahead of them Bill Williams was standing in the stirrups, waving his hat, beckoning the men forward.
Titus kicked his horse into a lope with the others as they streamed off the two sides of their herd.
“Bowers, you and Gibbon stay right here at the front of these here horses,” Williams ordered in a staccato. “Keep ’em moving—but slow.”
“What ’bout you?” Samuel Gibbon asked as three more gunshots rattled in quick succession.
Williams’s lips stretched into a thin line of determination. “Rest of us gonna see what all the shooting’s for.”
“Awright, Bill,” John Bowers agreed.
“C’mon, fellas,” Williams ordered as he reined around in a tight circle. “Keep your flints sharp and your heads down when we bust outta the trees!”
By the time they had raced no more than another mile up the Blue River toward the Uncompahgre, Bass noticed the thin column of greasy black smoke curling above the leafy treetops. By then, the sporadic gunfire had all but died off.
“That ain’t a good sign!” Titus called out to the others, pointing.
Williams and Adair nodded. While they watched, a second, and finally a third thin column of smoke appeared to streak the sky.
Just as the trappers reached the line of trees bordering a small meadow on the south bank of the river, Bill threw up his arm. The rest of them slowed and spread out to either side of their leader, reining to a halt right when three men on foot suddenly burst into view, sprinting on a collision course for the timber where Williams’s horsemen suddenly appeared out of the shadows. The trio of frightened men spotted the trappers just about the time the trappers raised their rifles in warning.
“Hold on there!” Titus roared, his horse prancing backward a few steps anxiously.
Bewildered and terrified, the three skidded to a halt, immediately dropping their weapons and throwing up their hands.
Williams reined his horse close to the three and gave every one of them a good eyeing. “Who the hell are you?”
“Two of ’em’s Mex.” Bass translated what he could of the excited response. All three kept checking over their shoulders as they stood among the trappers, peering back across the meadow. “This other’s a Frenchie half- breed.”
A few warriors suddenly showed themselves on horseback, breaking out of the trees near the post’s stockade. Spotting the trappers back against the trees, the bare-chested horsemen halted, reining around in circles as they yelped a warning to more of their number. In a moment, more than thirty painted, feathered horsemen belched from the stockade. They poured into the meadow, weaving in and out and around the three separate grass fires raging in the meadow.
All of them beat their chest provocatively and shouted out their boastful challenges to the white men.
“You cipher things the way I do, Titus Bass?” Williams asked.
“Maybeso,” Scratch replied gravely. “Looks like them bastards want us to come out and fight.”
“These here Robidoux’s men?” Williams demanded, indicating the frightened refugees as those distant warriors raced their ponies back and forth across the meadow, working up a second wind in their animals.
Bass nodded, keeping his eye on the Indians growing bolder by the moment. “Figger they skeedaddled afore they lost their hair.”
Bill grumbled, “Ask ’em what’s the chalk at their post.”
From what little Titus was able to recall of the Spanish tongue, he could ask only limited questions, comprehending only portions of the frantic, impassioned jabber they flung at him.
“From what I get, them Injuns is—”
Williams interrupted, “Hold it—did I hear that’un say them are Yutas?”
“Yutas,” Bass confided as one of the Mexicans bobbed his head up and down with agreement. But Titus was baffled by this strange turn of events. “Never knowed ’em to take on white men afore.”
“Maybe one of these’r parley-voo half-breeds can tell us something,” Bill continued, turning to look over his trappers. “Marechal! Listen to this here Frenchie—see what he claims brung all this—”
The raiders instantly wheeled around to stare at the fort the moment they heard high-pitched screams.
At the narrow opening of the double-hung gate appeared more than a handful of women—most of them squaws by their dress, while two were clearly Mexican. A half dozen warriors flushed them screaming and whimpering from the stockade.
“There’s your answer, Bill,” Titus grumbled. “They come for to get their women back.”
Williams wagged his head. “You figger this here raid gotta do with their women?”
“They ain’t set fire to the post,” Scratch observed.
Jake Corn growled, “Not yet anyways.”
“Ain’t butchered these here fellas neither,” Bass protested, feeling even stronger stirrings of confusion at the Ute attack. “For some reason they let the greasers an’ parley-voos run ’stead of shooting ’em.”
“There goes your hurraw at Robidoux’s, boys!” Williams roared with a cackling laugh. “Them Yutas is taking back their wimmens!”
“An’ them two Mex’ gals besides?” whined Dick Owens.
“Plain as paint,” Bass replied.
“But them Mex’ gals ain’t theirs to take!” Pete Harris protested.
“Yutas and Mexicans been stealin’ women and young’uns back and forth from each other,” Titus declared. “Near as long as there’s been Mexicans and Yutas in these mountains, I’d lay.”
“I say we kill them bucks!” Pete Harris suddenly spoke up. “Get them women back for the fort an’ ourselves.”
When a few of the other trappers hollered in agreement, Williams and Bass turned to peer at Thompson’s old friend together. Titus said, “Your stinger sure must need some dipping in a woman’s honeypot in a bad way, Harris!”
“I ain’t gonna let no yellow-bellied Yuta scare me off!” Harris boasted.
When Williams shot Titus a sly grin, Bass shrugged and turned to the others, asking, “How’s that shine with the rest of you? We gonna lay into them Yuta and run ’em off?”
“Like Harris said,” Jack Robinson argued, “them redbellies is taking the women.
“You’re all hobble-headed!” Bass snapped. “Them bucks got ever’ right to come here an’ take back their own women if’n they want.”
His neck feathers ruffling, Dick Owens demanded, “You ain’t gonna do nothing ’bout it, Bass?”
“Them squaws?” Titus wagged of his head. “My truck with them warriors got more to do with running off white men from their trading post.”
“Even if they’re no-account greaser and parley-voo?” Pete Harris asked with a big grin plastered on his face.
