touch me when I forced her legs apart. But I think she finally understood how alone I was in the world.”
“She’d never leave you now,” Titus said.
“And I won’t leave her till the day she dies.” Suddenly his face grew animated. “We don’t have much—just these two poor rabbits. But you are welcome to eat with us when they are cooked.”
“I have a better idea,” Titus signed with his hands as he was struck with the thought. “Both of you come eat with us. We have some antelope that I shot two days ago.”
“Go get it, bring it here, and you two can camp with us,” said Slays in the Night.
He wagged his head. “We already have our camp set up. My wife and two other children.”
“There are more of you?”
“Save your rabbits for another day,” Titus suggested. “Come have supper with us tonight instead.”
“How far away are you camped?”
“Not far—down the creek by the tall cone.”
“I know the place like I know my own hand!”
“I thought you would,” Scratch remarked. “It isn’t far, even for those tired old horses of yours.”
Slays in the Night stood as the white man and the boy got to their feet. “Do you think we can go with you now? I don’t want to wait until evening. It has been so long since I have had new ears to talk to.”
Bass looked at the woman’s expectant face, then studied the old warrior’s wrinkled eyes, the deep clefts, and his sagging jawline. “Yes. It will be good that you two come join us now.”
* Sometimes referred to as Brown’s Hole;
TWENTY-THREE
That Indian was a proud man, one who had made plenty of mistakes, owned up to his faults, yet was still paying for what lay in the long-ago past. It didn’t seem fair to Titus Bass, since he’d made a heap of mistakes in his own life.
Still, he damn well understood just how few things in his own life had turned out anywhere near fair. Scratch could admire the warrior’s dogged persistence, as well as his survival savvy. And he got to thinking that perhaps there was a reason why he had run onto Slays in the Night after all these years, now that they were both no longer young and frisky as bull calves in spring … now that they had rubbed their old horns down to a polish and they no longer frolicked, the sap of youth no longer coursing through their veins. Considering the odds that once stood against the Shoshone warrior, it was nothing less than a wonder that Slays in the Night was still alive at all.
Even in her youth, that Digger woman could never have been a comely gal, Titus thought the more he looked her over that evening at supper. She didn’t talk much either, mostly keeping her eyes lowered except when she stole furtive glances at Waits-by-the-Water or one of the children. Red Paint Rock had to be half again as old as Waits. She was built sturdy and close to the ground, but it was the pear shape to her body that made the woman seem all the more squat—especially when she stood next to the tall Shoshone.
“This is really the old friend who stole our horses long ago?” Waits whispered at his ear when he called her to the lodge after everyone had eaten supper and wiped their greasy hands on their hair.
“Yes,” he responded in a hush. “The man’s medicine has seen better days.”
“Our horses, our things are safe from him now?”
Laying his hands on her shoulders, Titus reassured, “That was a long time ago, far away, a wrong committed by another man.”
“You can be sure of him?”
“I want you to believe in me when I say I can.”
She looked into his eyes. “Then I will trust you, even though I do not know if I can trust him.”
“You can trust me.” He turned to kneel at the stack of blankets.
She stepped up behind his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“I am making gifts to them,” he explained, feeling her eyes on his back as he pulled out a red blanket, and a multi-striped one too. Sensing her waiting there behind him made him a little edgy, feeling as if he had to explain this act of charity when she herself was the most giving person he himself had ever known.
He turned slightly on his knees and asked, “Them extra guns—where’d you lay ’em?”
“You’re going to make a gift of a gun?” she asked, surprised enough that her voice rose an octave.
“Yes. He has nothing but a poor gun that is only good to shoot a few poor rabbits.”
“There, back where you sleep. I laid them under that green blanket.”
“The extra lead and powder we got for my work at Bridger’s fort?”
She pointed. “In the basket—there.”
Scratch crabbed toward the back of the lodge on all fours, pulled back the blanket, and started appraising all the extra firearms he owned, most of them taken from the bodies of dead enemies over the years. He picked out a rifled flintlock, then selected a pistol that could use the same size ball.
“What does she have to cook in?” Waits asked.
Her sudden question startled him. Scratch turned and peered over his shoulder at her with a shrug. “How’d I know what she’s got to cook in? Didn’t pay no attention. Only saw her skinnin’ a pair of poor-lookin’ rabbits—”
“Isn’t that just like a man.” She let her words whip him even while she grinned. “This woman needs something too, but all you can mink about is your gifts to the man.”
He smiled back at her. “What you got in mind for Red Paint Rock?”
“I have a kettle she can have,” Waits began as she crouched on the robes and went to digging through her belongings. “And a new knife too.”
He stood, scooping up the rifle and pistol, then started for the door—stopping to lean over and plant a kiss on the top of her head as she dug out a few yards of some cloth and several feet of red ribbon. When he had ducked out of the lodge, Scratch called for his children.
“Flea, take your sister and little brother into the lodge to help your mother,” he directed. “I want you to bring me the two blankets your mother will show you. And help your mother bring out all that she is gathering up too.”
It wasn’t long before Flea and Magpie carried the heavy wool blankets out and laid them on a shady patch of grass so Titus could prop the rifle against the stack and lay the pistol on top of it all. He went back to the lodge to pick out some powder and lead while the children helped their mother bring out the rest of her gifts. Through it all, Slays in the Night and Red Paint Rock watched with growing interest and curiosity as the white man’s family bustled back and forth to the lodge and the dogs whimpered to be let off their ropes.
At last, Scratch settled again at the fire, where the antelope haunch roasted. He pointed at the spit, then signed, “How long has it been since you ate antelope?”
Self-consciously, the warrior said, “A long time. They move too fast for my … for my old gun.”
“You and the woman are lucky that old gun of yours can keep you both fed.”
“We get a little to eat. Enough for her and me,” the Shoshone replied. Then, pointing at the rifle leaning against that stack of blankets, Slays said, “I like the looks of your gun. Such a gun shoots straight, kills a lot of game.”
“That ain’t my gun over there,” Titus corrected. “Used to be.”
The Shoshone looked at him quizzically until Scratch explained, “It’s your gun now.”
“M-my gun?” he signed, tapping his breast with a trembling hand.
He stood up again, reaching down to pull the warrior’s arm. “C’mon. Let’s go see how your new rifle feels in your hands.”
As he stepped away from the fire with the white man, Slays said something to the Digger woman. Her eyes grew wide, bouncing back and forth between the rifle, the old trapper, and Bass’s family, who stood nearby, watching their guests. After a moment of stunned silence, Red Paint Rock quietly said something to her husband.
