Esau looked at the tall man. “I been there twice’t, why?”
In that sudden, heavy silence, Shad set his tin plate aside, stood, and moved off, gesturing for Shell Woman to follow him away from the fire’s light.
Drawing in a deep breath, Bass watched Sweete step away; then his eyes touched Roman’s before he asked, “Esau, how’d you take to the idee o’ leadin’ this bunch of farmers to the Willamette?”
“Go with you?” Esau squeaked.
“I ain’t goin’ along,” Titus confessed. “Not Shadrach neither.”
Wagging his head, the black man asked, “Why’d I ever wanna lead these folks to Oregon City?”
“You know of Oregon City?” Burwell cried, nearly spilling his tin plate of boiled beans as he squirmed atop a small crate.
“Been there a time, once only,” Esau admitted.
Titus leaned close to the black man at his left. “But you damn well know the way.”
“I s’pose,” he replied unsurely, “but that don’t make for a good reason for me to pick up and leave behind everything I worked hard for just to go—”
“Here you only work as a hired man,” Scratch reminded him. “When you put Taos at your back, didn’t you ever wanna be your own man again?”
Esau swallowed thoughtfully. “I been fine,” he responded firmly. “Been a good life for me in this place and with these men.”
“You’re a colored to ’em,” Bass said.
“An’ I’ll always be a Neegra to them Americans I meet coming through to Oregon.”
“How’d it be to stand on your own feet, be your own boss?” Titus tantalized him. “Maybeso to have your own shop in Oregon City?”
Scratch noticed how that sparked a light behind Roman Burwell’s eyes as well.
“He could!” Roman asserted. “By God, he could at that!”
Titus felt his mouth going dry. “So what you think of strikin’ out on your own?”
Esau’s face was grayed with doubt. “That’s a long, long way to go, just for a man to take such a chance. I-I ain’t ever led … folks.” He turned his head and gazed round at the wagon camp spread about the meadow. “To lead all these white folks—”
But Titus interrupted him, “The Esau I ’member knowin’ years back was a man what had the sand to run off from the Pawnee, a man with enough grit to point his nose west ’stead of goin’ back where things might be easy.”
The black man hung his head in recollection, staring down at his unfinished plate of beans. “All things would’ve been hard, I’d gone back where I come from again.”
“You the same fella I knowed years ago, with that same sand and fightin’ tallow?”
Esau’s eyes shone, as if he wanted to believe despite his deep misgivings. Still he resisted, “I got work steady. The pay isn’t much, but it takes care of things, gives me everything I could want.”
“Ever’thing … ’cept your own dream,” Titus declared, almost in a whisper. “Like all the rest of these farmers, some shopkeepers too. They’re all goin’ west to snatch at a dream with both hands. An’ you can grab your dream too.”
“I-I gotta sleep on this,” Esau admitted with a wag of his head. “This is a big … big thing and my head is hurtin’ with it already.”
“Yes, you sleep on it,” Roman said reassuringly.
Scratch laid his hand on Esau’s knee, saying, “Like we awready told you, Shadrach an’ me come from Bridger’s post to see if’n we could find these folks a pilot what could take ’em on to Oregon country. Hell, maybeso it’s a bad idee askin’ you if you’d lead ’em. Mayhaps better off would be you tell us if there’s a old fur man still about, one what would make a better pilot for this company. Someone knows where the camping grounds are, where lie the best fords of the Snake—”
“I know where those are,” Esau declared.
“I reckon on what you’re saying: Not ever’ man is ready to lead all these folks to their dreams,” Scratch cautioned. “I feel bad we offered you something you don’t want, Esau.”
“Ain’t … ain’t that at all,” the black man replied with his own reluctance. “Just … that it’s a mighty thing to do all at once: leave my work, set off for a new home, start on my own—”
“Same as all these folks are doing,” Roman reminded. “None of us any different from you. We just need someone who’s been there before to help along the road.”
As Sweete moved back into the light among them again, he remarked, “Did I hear you right, Esau—said you’d been there twice?”
When the tall man had settled on a stump and picked up his half-filled plate, Esau repeated, “Twice’t.”
“Scratch,” Shadrach began, looking at his old friend, “I don’t know but maybe it’d be better Esau had someone to ride ’long to Oregon country with him.”
“So mayhaps he wouldn’t feel like ever’thing’s layin’ on his shoulders?” Titus asked, studying Sweete’s face for more clues to the mood of his old friend’s mind. “You reckon we could find someone to go along, someone to help Esau?”
Shad’s head bobbed eagerly. “Right. Someone to help pilot the train with Esau, someone what’s handy at most ever’thing a pilot’s got to do.”
Titus licked his lips and asked, “So all Esau have to do is help that pilot by tellin’ him where the next camping grounds is, or what ford to cross a river?”
“That’s ’sactly what I was thinking,” Sweete admitted.
Titus turned to the tradesman and inquired, “You know anyone like that, Esau?”
The Negro shrugged. “I dunno of any man hereabouts what could fill them shoes.”
“Not a soul around?” Titus repeated. “Not a single man who could give you a hand with trail savvy?”
Esau wagged his head again. “I don’t figger there’s much call for such a man this far along the trail to the Willamette.”
Turning then to look at his old trapping partner, Scratch grinned as he said, “Shadrach, you got any notion where we’ll find someone what could help Esau pilot this bunch to Oregon?”
Combing his beard with his greasy fingers, Shadrach swallowed and declared, “Matter of fact, I-I went off an’ asked Toote about just such a thing.”
“’Bout what?” Esau asked.
“’Bout us goin’ to Oregon, see some brand-new country for us both.” He turned to find Titus’s grin grown into a huge smile.
Scratch asked, “What’d Shell Woman say to your idee?”
“Said it was fine by her for us to get a gander at more new country. Maybe even have us a look at the big salt ocean too.”
Rising to his feet, Bass stomped over to drag Sweete to his feet so he could throw his arms around the tall man. “I ain’t got no itch to see the ocean my own self—so one of these days you’ll have to come back to these here mountains so you can tell me if it’s all folks say it is.”
Shad pounded Bass on the back. “I figger to look up Meek an’ Newell while I’m in that country.”
“It’s been some years since they run off to make new homes in Oregon,” Titus said. “You gonna make yourself a home in that yonder land?”
“Naw,” and he gazed straight into Bass’s eyes. “This here’s our country, Titus Bass. Your eyes’ll see me coming back one day.”
“If’n we both still wear our hair.” Then Scratch turned to the tradesman. “So what say you, Esau Bass? Are you truly a free man? Would you care to make yourself one last journey to the Willamette with these here pilgrims?”
The black man swallowed hard, his brow furrowed in consternation. “Mr. Shadrach Sweete, you’re going along, positively sure?”
“Same as Titus Bass when he tells you something, you can count your blood on what I tell you.”
The Negro nodded and blinked. “You’ll pilot these white folks if’n I go along?”
“We’re both pilots, Esau.”
With a long sigh, the tradesman scratched at his graying head, then asked, “What if I figger to stay put right
