and full of vinegar.”
“My name’s Haney Rankin,” and he held his hand up. “I’m Murray’s segundo while most of the fort hands are off with Bransford—gone to fight the greasers in Taos. You can head ’round to the east wall. You remember that corral over there?”
“I do recollect. There a gate on that side?”
Rankin nodded. “Bring your family on inside that small corral. Sun’s down so we’re bolting these here gates for the night. I’ll meet you over to the corral.”
“You don’t s’pect trouble from them Injuns camped down in them trees?” he asked as Rankin followed the cannon through the darkened entry way.
“Naw. That’s Gray Thunder’s band,” Rankin’s voice echoed through the low, shadowy entry way. “They come in a week or so back—soon as they heard Charlie Bent was kill’t by the Mexicans. Offered to go kill greasers if William wanted ’em to.”
Bass waited till the three were swallowed by shadows, then reined his horse away. “C’mon, woman,” he said in English to his Crow wife. “We’ll settle in for the night. Come morning, I’m fixin’ to pay a call on that Cheyenne camp. Maybeso scratch up some news ’bout a old friend of ours.”
“I will stay behind with the children when you go,” Waits spoke emphatically. “Cheyenne are not so much friends with my people.”
“Better I go down there by myself anyway,” he agreed. “See what sort of mood them Cheyenne are in afore I go asking up about that ol’ friend.”
“Who is this?”
“You ’member the one about as tall a man as you ever seen?”
She thought a moment as they brought their ponies to a halt outside the narrow east gate. Then a grin crossed her face ruddied by the cold. “Shad-rach,” she said slowly, deliberately, in her husband’s tongue.
“Shadrach Sweete,” he repeated as the gate was drawn back against the icy snow and Rankin was there with a candle lantern spilling its yellow patch on the snow around his feet.
“So where’s this Titus Bass?” a loud, deep voice boomed in the dark behind Rankin.
“Who’s asking?” Scratch demanded as he dropped from the saddle onto the snow and started his horse through the corral gate.
“Dick Green,” the voice said as a shadow took shape and the huge, muscular man stepped up to the old trapper. He turned to hurl his voice over his shoulder, “As I live an’ breathe—if it ain’t him, Charlotte!” Then he was grinning at the old trapper, yanking on Bass’s arm as he trudged backward into the corral. “C’mon in here, bring them folks all in here now!”
The blacksmith’s big hand quickly seized hold of Bass’s mitten and pumped heartily as Green pounded Scratch on the other shoulder.
“Oh, my! Oh, my!” a high voice squealed as a woman squirted out of the kitchen door, a low rectangle of light behind her. “It
He watched her crumple to her knees in the snow, her ankle-length broomstick skirt fanning out around her as she began to pat the tops of her thighs and whistle as good as any St. Louis wharfside stevedore. “C’mere! C’mon over here, you li’l whelps!”
“This the woman who traded me for the dogs,” Titus explained to Waits as the dogs bounded over to the black cook.
“That is easy to see.” She turned and signaled through the open corral gate for the children to dismount, pointing them off to the right in this triangular-shaped corral strung along the full extent of the easternmost wall.
Watching the dogs lick the cook’s face, Scratch grinned, saying, “They sure as hell remember you!”
“What brung you back here for such a hoo-doo season?” Dick Green asked him as Rankin took the reins from Bass’s hand.
“We was down to Taos when the blood started running in the streets,” he explained in a near whisper. “Got out by the skin of our teeth.”
The big blacksmith wagged his head dolefully. “Figger to lay low here till it blows over, then head south again?”
Titus shook his head as Waits and the children came up beside him. “We’re here for a night, maybeso two at the most, then we push on.”
“Middle of winter the way it is?” Charlotte whimpered as she slowly brought her bulk off the ground and stood. “Surely you can find something to do here to keep these young’uns o’ yours safe till spring when you can leave.”
Titus smiled at her. “By first green we’ll be long on our way to Crow country, Miss Charlotte.”
He then went on to introduce everyone all around. While Dick went to fetch some short sections of rope to tie up the dogs there in the corral, Charlotte shuffled Waits-by-the-Water and the three children inside her warm, glowing kitchen.
“You manage the rest by yourself, Bass?” Rankin asked.
“Be just fine by myself, thankee.”
The trader tugged on his blanket mittens. “We got a few more chores afore Charlotte sits us all down for supper. An’ Goddamn don’t like to be kept waiting on his supper ’cause I’m late getting my chores see’d to.”
“Be off with you then,” Scratch said with a grin as Rankin started away. “And tell Goddamn Murray that the blanket man has come to pay a call.”
Rankin stopped in the snow. “Blanket man?”
“Time I was here last, I took near ever’ blanket Murray had in this here fort—traded off a hull shitteree of horses to him.”
A big smile crossed the clerk’s face. “The blanket man, eh?”
“All them blankets I packed north on Cheyenne horses been keeping the Crows warm for the past few winters.”
“Sounds to me I should ask Murray ’bout you sitting to dinner with us in the main room.”
Titus shrugged. “No need to bother ’bout such foofaraw doin’s.” He gestured at Charlotte and said, “Looks like we’ll be eatin’ just fine with the cook her own self.”
“Just the same—you still want me tell him the blanket man’s come to call?”
“If I don’t run onto him this evenin’, just tell Murray I’ll be round to call at the trade room in the morning.”
It was just growing light when Titus Bass slowly rolled out of the buffalo robes and blankets so as not to disturb his family, pulled on his moccasins and heavy coat, then carefully dragged back the heavy cottonwood door and stepped outside beneath the low awning that ran along this southern side of the courtyard. The wheelwright’s shop, where they had bedded down for the night, was located right beside Dick Green’s forge, with the wagon alley running just behind those small rooms, arranged in a row with the gunsmith’s and carpenter’s shops too. No one was yet stirring in the plaza, where a light snow had dusted the massive fur press. He stepped into the cold air, turned, and dragged the door closed behind him, when off to his right he made out the soft notes of a woman’s hum. Shuffling through the new snow he entered the kitchen, surprised to find it already warm, cozy, inviting.
“Well lookee here, Charlotte!” Dick Green’s voice greeted Titus as the blacksmith stepped around a corner. “Mr. Bass is a early get-upper hisself too.”
Charlotte poked her head around a corner, smears of flour dusting her nose, a cheek, and the side of her bandanna decorated with red Mexican roses. “You ready for some coffee?”
Scratch smiled. “Damn if I ain’t allays ready for coffee!”
“C’mon back here where we got the pot on,” Charlotte offered. “Mr. Green, I could use your help cuttin’ the bacon for me.”
“Be there straightaway,” the blacksmith promised. “You get this man a cup of coffee, then I be right with you.”
The Negro servants had spent a little time talking with the trapper and his family when their chores were
