celebrated half a hundred birthdays. Last out the long winters, do some hunting, maybe run a daytime trapline come each spring if he took a notion to and a stretch of country looked promising, help others break and breed the horses all summer through, then pay a visit to the trader downriver when autumn turned the cottonwood to gold …
“Well I’ll be jigged—you’re a white fella,” exclaimed the man stepping from the open gate of his log post, peering up at Titus Bass before he glanced over those warriors and women, children and old people, all arrayed across the prairie behind Scratch. “From a ways back, you looked about as Injun as the rest of them you brought with you.”
“Guilty there,” Titus answered with a smile. He held down his hand to the man. “Name’s Bass.”
“Murray,” he replied with a real burr to the r’s.
“Met a fella same name as you down to Bents Fort last fall. You related?”
“Don’t have any relations in the country,” Murray admitted.
“Mite s’prised to see a man’s built anything here on the river,” Titus said as the last of the Crow came up noisily and started to dismount in the meadow nearby. “If’n it don’t make you no nevermind, this bunch’ll make camp here for the night.”
“Where you bound downriver?” Murray inquired.
“Tullock’s post near the mouth of the Tongue.”
“Tullock is no longer there,” Murray explained. “Last I heard he’s nowhere to be found on the upper river. Don’t know where he’s gone.”
“Don’t say?” Bass replied with a little suspicion.
“And his old post, Van Buren, is no longer there. We burned it last autumn.”
That struck him as downright criminal. “Why the devil you burn Tullock’s post for?”
“Under orders to, by Culbertson, company factor up at Fort Union. A year ago May he sent ten of us upriver with Charles Larpenteur in charge, ordered to close down Van Buren and build this post.” Murray held out both arms expansively to indicate the compact log stockade enclosing the post that stood no more than one hundred feet square. A handful of stone chimneys constructed of river rock poked their blackened heads above the eight-foot walls.
Bass cleared his dusty, parched throat. “So this here’s American Fur?”
“And me as well. I’ve been the trader for more’n nine months here already,” Murray admitted. “Larpenteur was called back to Union last November—so it’s just me and four engages.”
Titus finally swung to the ground as his wife and children came out of their saddles. “So Tullock and Van Buren ain’t no more.”
“No, sir. You know Tullock long?”
“Me and him go back some. What’d you name this place?”
“Larpenteur named it for our chief factor.”
“Fort Culbertson?”
“No. We’ve blessed it with our factor’s first name,” Murray declared. “You’re standing at the walls of Fort Alexander.”
Over the next few days the visiting Crow went about their business with the powerful company that had brought an end to both the beaver business and the mountain rendezvous, the economic giant who had crushed a glorious way of life in its mighty fist. It surprised Titus to discover he was still sore having to deal with American Fur again, but he reminded himself he’d done it before. What few furs he had managed to trap the previous spring did garner some shiny geegaws for the children, a few yards of wool cloth for Waits, and that much-needed powder and bar lead. Their trading done with Murray at this new Yellowstone post, Yellow Belly’s band turned about on the fifth morning and started upriver once more.
That second winter began early and proved to be even harder than the last. Spring was long in coming. Because the weather had made them prisoners, few of the Crow had many furs to trade on their next journey down the Yellowstone to Fort Alexander.
“Murray here?” Titus asked the figure stepping from the gate as he and two dozen of the Crow men dismounted in advance of the village.
At first the solidly built man did not acknowledge his question; instead, he shaded his eyes that early autumn day and noted the dust haze rising over the hundreds of Crow who were steering their herds into the expansive meadow filled with grass already cured by the first frost.
“No, Murray doesn’t work here no more,” the stranger replied as his eyes finally came back to look upon Bass.
After another full round of seasons spent listening to nothing but the Crow tongue, Scratch’s ear picked up a strong Scottish accent, all that much heartier than Murray’s brogue. “You in charge?”
“No. The factor’s named Kipp.”
“He here?”
“Inside. Come with me,” the man offered, then he gestured at the Crow men. “Three of them at a time, only.”
Scratch hit the ground and rubbed his aching knees. With the advent of every year he resented that pain brought of being in the saddle a little more. Holding out his hand, he said, “I’m Titus Bass.”
“Robert Meldrum,” the man answered, brushing a thick shock of sandy brown hair from his eyes. “You live with this band I see.”
“With my wife, young’uns too.”
Meldrum surprised Scratch when he turned to face the throngs of Crow men and suddenly began speaking loudly, in a respectable Crow. “Your chiefs must decide who among you will be the first to come inside and smoke before trading. We’ll set the prices, then the trading can begin in earnest after sunrise tomorrow.”
As the headmen gathered to discuss who would accompany the trader into the fort, Bass grabbed the white man’s elbow. “You speak good Crow, Meldrum.”
“Had some practice,” the trader replied.
“Figgered you for a Scotchman, from the sound of your words.”
“I’m Scots, that’s for sure,” Meldrum admitted with a characteristic burr. “Born on the moors in the second year of the century. Came to Kentucky with me parents.”
“You’ve been out here for some time,” Titus observed.
“Came west with Ashley’s trading caravan in twenty-seven. Didn’t go back with the other clerks after rendezvous.”
“Twenty-seven …” And he pondered the roll of sites. “I recollect that’un was held over at the bottom of Sweet Lake.”*
“Still some small affairs back then,” Meldrum declared as he kept his gray eyes pinned on the Crows’ deliberations. “But they got bigger.”
“An’ noisier too,” Scratch said. “So how come you speak such good Crow?”
“Married one. It helps.”
“Damn if it don’t. Haven’t got me no idee how a fella gets along with a Injun gal if he don’t know her tongue!”
“Most fellows, they have no intentions of sticking around long enough to learn to speak their woman’s language.”
That evening Scratch and his family were invited to sit for supper with the post’s factor, James Kipp. Even more so than Robert Meldrum, this man was clearly educated; not the usual sort who had worked his way up through the ranks on muscle.
“I heard your name afore—from a ol’ friend of mine works downriver at Fort Union,” Titus explained as they were introduced.
“Who was that?”
“Levi Gamble. Maybeso you know ’im.”
“He was a good man, a steadfast employee in his day.”
“In h-his day?” Titus echoed. “He ain’t working at the fort no more?”
“Last word I had, Gamble took to drinking, hard too,” Kipp disclosed. “Seems he lost his wife when she was burned terribly, a lodge fire as I recall. She lingered awhile, pitifully—then died in his arms.”
“Damn,” Scratch muttered under his breath, his eyes flicking quickly to glance at his woman.
