have journeyed far, far to the north—up near the country of the Blackfoot where the English trade. And far, far to the south where the Apache roam the mountains and valleys. I have gone all the way to the end of the land where the deep, white-ruffled ocean touches the last place a man can stand with dry moccasins. And many times you have asked me to tell you about that country where I was born far to the east. Sometimes when I think of all the country I have traveled, all the mountains and rivers, valleys and deserts I have crossed in my seasons, my head starts to hurt with the remembering of so much … far more than one man can hold in his mind.”
“Have you ever found a better place than Crow country for Ti-tuzz?”
Taking her face gently in both of his rough, weathered, cinder-blackened hands, Scratch said, “That’s what I am trying to tell you,
“I miss my country,” she admitted. “But I would miss you more if I were not with you.”
“I promised to take you with me, everywhere I go—and our children too. Until our little ones grow and they are gone with lives of their own, we will be together.”
“Magpie will be first,” she said with a mother’s resignation. “Although she professes that she never wants to go.”
“Yes. One day soon she will admit that she is ready to leave us.”
“Perhaps when she gives her heart away, as a woman will do for the man she loves.”
Titus squeezed her, then said, “And Flea will be next—when he grows old enough to be with other young warriors and sleep in a shelter of his own.”
“That will happen before he even picks a wife,” she speculated.
“And little Jackrabbit,” he said. “But, that time seems so distant now that it is hard to see even with far- seeing eyes.”
Waits shifted her weight a little self-consciously and asked, “So what of Jackrabbit’s little brother or sister?”
“It would be a long, long time before that child would be ready to leave its mother and father.”
Then she pulled away from him slightly, within arm’s length, so she could hold his wrists and gaze into his eyes. “So what child do you hope Jackrabbit will have? A little brother, or a little sister?”
“He is in his fifth summer, so what do you think Jackrabbit would like most?”
“I think he would like a little sister.”
“And why would a boy want to have a little sister?”
“I only know that I want another baby girl,” she confessed.
“Yes,” he said in a whisper. “Magpie was so dear. Girls are very different from boys. A sister for Jackrabbit would be good.”
“But,” she said, the smile gone from her eyes, “you would not be disappointed if Jackrabbit has a little brother?”
He began to look at her strangely, something gradually coming into focus for him the way he would twist on that last section of his spyglass as he brought a distant object into the sharpest focus. He did not realize his mouth was hanging open until she placed a fingertip beneath his chin and pushed it closed for him. With other fingers she took hold of his hand, moved it down to her belly.
“I first came to know while you were gone with Blanket Chief, taking Shell Woman to Sweete,” she explained as she pressed his palm flat against her soft, rounded belly with both of hers.
He stood there, still speechless.
“So this morning while you talked with these strange white men as you worked,” Waits continued, “I sat in the sun, closed my eyes, and made a prayer of my own.”
Bass swallowed hard. “Y-yes?”
“I prayed that you would find joy in this news.”
“H-how could I not?” he exclaimed. “You are … we are? Another baby?”
She nodded, unable to speak at that moment, the tears starting to spill down her high-boned, copper-skinned cheeks.
Immediately he wrapped his arms around her in a fierce embrace, hoisting her off the ground in a half circle before he plopped her back down on the dirt of that open-air blacksmith shop at Fort Bridger.
“H-how soon will this child come?”
“Winter,” she said, a little breathless. “Maybe as early as your day of birth, but probably later.”
“Winter,” he repeated, then suddenly kissed her, hard, on the mouth, and quickly dropped to his knees before her, pressing his cheek and ear against that slightly rounded belly.
“Do you want this child born in Crow country?”
She used both her hands to gently cup the top of that faded blue bandanna tied around his head. “This child will choose its own place to be born, Ti-tuzz. If we are back among my people, or if we are somewhere else of our choosing—this child will decide.”
He pressed his mouth against her soft belly and kissed it.
“No matter where we are when the child’s time comes, as long as we are all together there,” she said as he got to his feet once more, “then it will be as the First Maker has intended.”
“I will be there,” he promised, tears stinging his eyes as he painfully remembered not being with her when she gave birth to Jackrabbit. “For you, I will always be there.”
TEN
“Wagons coming!”
Titus Bass turned at the cry from his son’s throat. Wiping sweat from his eyes with a scrap of scratchy burlap there beneath the shady awning, he squinted at the front gate, both sides flung open for the day. At that moment Flea burst into view, reined his racing pony to a dust-stirring halt, and leaped to the ground near the fire pit.
“Wagons coming, Popo!”
As the barefoot boy came racing up to him on foot, yanking the spotted pony behind him, Scratch smiled and said, “Your American talk is gettin’ real good, Flea. Real good.”
Then he raised that grimy hand clutching the scrap of burlap and shaded his brow, staring beyond the boy and through the gate at the thickening cloud of dust to the northeast in that valley of Black’s Fork.
Bridger stepped from the store and glanced his way before he slapped his hat on his head, and he too regarded the distance. “That boy of your’n got the eyes of a hawk, Titus Bass!”
Looping his arm over his son’s bare shoulder, he proudly said, “That he do, Gabe. You want he should go with you to greet ’em?”
“Hell, his American is good as can be. I’ll tag along, but why don’t we let Flea lead ’em over to that southwest meadow where the grass ain’t awready been cropped down.”
He gazed at his son and asked, “You understand Gabe?”
Flea stared up at his father and nodded. With a gulp he said, “I go ride. Tell wagon men follow me. Meadow camp, good grass.”
“Can you tell ’em why we don’t want ’em to camp near the fort?”
“Bridger’s grass is Bridger’s grass,” Flea said, mimicking a stern tone. “Bridger’s grass for all year round, grass for Bridger. Not for wagon men.”
Patting the lad on the head, Titus said, “Get along with you now, son. You take them folks to the meadow on up the river two mile.”
The boy’s smile could not have covered more of his face as he wheeled away in a scurry of dust. Seizing a double handful of the pony’s mane he heaved himself onto its back, settled, and brushed some of his unbound hair from his eyes as he yanked the reins to the side. With excited yelps, Digger and Ghost suddenly appeared from the side of the stockade, already racing at full gallop as they sprinted to catch up to Flea’s racing claybank.
“I ’spect Shadrach bring his kin back here any day now,” Bridger said as he stood there a moment
