creamy-white hide—the color of which was more sacred than anything else to Shell Woman’s people.
How could Porcupine Brush, blind and nearly deaf as well, have known the white men needed help, if he hadn’t been told by the First Maker through that sacred buffalo calf hide? And how was it that Shad’s unstoppable bleeding was healed and that makeshift wrap turned white if not through a power that answered Shell Woman’s fervent prayer, if not as an answer to Scratch’s own prayer to spare the life of his old friend? The two of them hadn’t talked about it much at all since that stormy night down on the South Platte. Some things a man found hard to describe, much less explain, even to himself, especially to others … no matter that they had gone through the very same experience together.
So if not a man to pray for himself, eventually Titus Bass had begun to pray for others. To ask that the power of that great hand be brought to bear on the fortunes of those he loved and cared for. How he had asked to get Waits back from the Blackfoot. Prayed that the pox would not take her from him. Asked to be freed from the grip of the desert, and the Diggers, and the distance too. And how he had begged that Roman Burwell be spared to his family.
In the end this simple man realized that what blessings were showered upon his loved ones would be showered upon him too.
By the time they got Roman back to the wagon, even the train’s dust had disappeared from the horizon. By then, the two old friends had put hours of work behind them.
Upon his return to the coulee, Shad explained he hadn’t wasted a lot of time when he rode up, yelling for their wives to fetch him the spare rope from the pack animals while he himself untied six of the hardwood ridgepoles from beneath the wagon box where Burwell kept them secured. They, and eight shorter poles, had been brought west with a large section of oiled Russian sheeting—kept in the event they needed additional shelter and had to erect a wall tent, or might use the extra canvas for repairs to the main wagon cover. With the two long poles tied into a V and four shorter ones quickly strapped across them, he laid the two buffalo robes over the back of the pack animal, then climbed into the saddle once more. That’s when he said Amanda had come running up, pleading with him to take her back to Roman.
“I’ve got to see him!” she begged, gazing up at the tall man in the saddle.
“Can you ride?”
“I can ride.”
As he began to turn, prepared to have his wife fetch up one of their saddle horses, Amanda pulled herself up atop that packsaddle frame to which he had lashed the improvised travois. “You ever ride ’thout a saddle?”
“No,” she answered with determination. “But, I’ve never had my husband near get himself killed neither. Let’s go.”
As soon as Shad and Amanda had neared the scene, Titus watched her pull back on the reins of that packhorse and leap off, her skirts a’swirl as she bounded to the ground and started leaping over the sage, dodging around the wind-stunted cedar.
“Pa! Pa!” she cried, her cheeks streaked with moisture as she came sliding to her knees beside him. “Oh … Roman.”
Gently, Titus pulled himself out from under Burwell and held Roman’s head up while she fit herself beneath his bare, bloodied shoulders. Bass got to his feet, feeling the cramped muscles protest in one leg where they had gone to sleep while he did what he could to shade his son-in-law from the cruel midsummer sun.
“Here,” Shad called, then tossed Scratch an old oak canteen. “I brung that for Roman.”
In turn Titus handed it over to Amanda and stepped back as he watched her drag up the end of her dress, then the bottom of her dirty petticoat. Onto a corner of this she carefully poured some water from the canteen, then dabbed it on the first of his cuts and puffy bruises.
“How far they ahead of us, by the time you got back?” Scratch asked.
“Can’t see nothin’ of ’em no more,” Sweete admitted.
Titus wagged his head, all the more angry for it. “Hargrove gonna make sure he covers ground today.”
“Make it so we can’t catch ’em today, fast as he’s driving ’em,” Shad agreed.
With a nod of recognition, Bass took a step toward Amanda, but Sweete caught his elbow and dragged him back.
“Stay here with me awhile, Scratch. Ain’t nothing you can do for ’im right now.”
“You’re right. But these hands what wanna choke those bastards need somethin’ to do,” Titus explained. “We need to be tying up a travois for Roman.”
As they bent over their work repositioning the cross members, then started tying on the cradle of a double thickness of buffalo robes in which they would place the injured man, Sweete confessed, “I wanted to keep you over here, where your daughter couldn’t hear.”
“Hear what?”
“Hear us talk on what we’re gonna do about Roman an’ Hargrove, an’ them badger-eyed bastards done this to
His hands stopped working at the series of knots and he stared at Sweete. “You’re in for making ’em pay for what they done to Roman?”
“Even if I wasn’t your friend, I’d throw in with you just to have a chance to see their faces when they realize they ain’t getting away with treatin’ folks like this.”
Bass grinned hugely. “While you was gone, I was thinkin’ my own self.”
“Your notion gonna happen tonight?”
“Soon as we get these three families caught up to the train.”
Shad wagged his head. “That’ll take some doing.”
“Then we’ll do it tomorrow night.”
It was all but dark when they had to admit that the oxen just weren’t going to be goaded into any more speed, any more miles that day. Reluctantly, they made camp as the stars winked into view and the women scrambled around to build a fire there beside the Little Muddy. At least they had some water. And some scrub oak, cedar, and sage for their fire—enough to last out the night.
Amanda steadfastly remained inside the wagon with Roman, day and night. She and Lucas budged from the wounded man’s side only to trudge into the brush and relieve themselves, once they crawled into the crowded box and settled in beside him. Mercifully, the farmer hadn’t come to as the travois bounded and jostled over the sage on the way back to the wagon, or as the two trappers hoisted the big man onto the tailgate. Burwell had grunted a time or two, and groaned in some misery, but he never did awaken that first day, even though his eyelids fluttered from time to time as he was jostled about. Waits-by-the-Water brought Amanda a half-full bucket of water and a dipper. Toote brought them a kettle of her hot soup.
Not long after the moon came up and Titus had Lemuel put his little brother and two sisters to bed beneath a low awning strung from the side of the wagon, Waits came to find her husband talking with Shad as the two sat just outside that ring of light given off by the flames.
“Ti-tuzz,” she said softly as she approached the two men.
He turned, seeing her, and smiled. “Your soup was good,” he said in English.
“Toote make,” she responded in his tongue. “Come now.”
“Come?”
She pointed back at the wagon. “Call for you. Amanda.”
“She needs me to come?”
Waits nodded. “Tell you come—Roman, he awake.”
Bass scrambled to his feet quickly. “Stay here and keep a sharp ear to the night, Shadrach.”
“I’ll be right here.”
Then Titus stopped and stood there a’swell with feelings and all fumble-footed. “Shad—I … I …”
Sweete bolted to his feet and held open his arms. They briefly pounded one another on the back. Shad said, “It’s good news. Him awake an’ all.”
With a nod, Scratch pulled away from their embrace and said, “Tomorrow night, we’ll cull a few outta Hargrove’s herd for what they done to Roman.”
Hurrying with Waits back to the wagon, he handed her his rifle and stepped to the rear pucker hole, pulling aside the curtain and peering over the tailgate. In a whisper Titus asked, “He awake?”
