Dance on the Wind tb-1

by Terry C. Johnston

  “I c-can’t get a hold on it.”

  “Stuck in the bone, most like,” Ovatt grumbled.

  “Yeah,” Kingsbury agreed. “Don’t you got something in your shooting pouch you can grab it with, Titus?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “What’s a fella use when he’s got a ball stuck down his barrel and you’re wanting to pull it out?”

  “I got a screw I put on the end of my wiping stick.”

  “Yeah, I know—but when you got the screw into the ball, what you use to yank hard on the wiping stick get that stuck ball out?”

  It came to him all at once. “That just might work. Get me my pouch.”

  Heman Ovatt flung the shooting pouch his way. Scrounging at the bottom of the front section of the pouch, Bass pulled out the forged-iron tongs he had never used all that much.

  “Them looks like they’ll work,” Kingsbury declared.

  “Hames, help pull that meat outta my way,” Titus told the boatman. As Kingsbury tugged the muscle in one direction, Bass eased it down in the other. Working his fingers back into the incision, he touched the rounded end of the arrow point once more. Slipping the small, narrow tongs into the incision, he guided them into position, clamped them around the point, and began to pull; “Damn, but that’s stuck in there.”

  “Work on it—it’ll come,” Ovatt said.

  Rocking it back and forth slightly, Titus felt it begin to give way, eventually freeing itself from its lock in that biggest bone in the human body. Carefully he slid it from the deep incision, captured between the tongs. Holding the point up to the light for a moment, Titus turned it around slowly so all could see.

  “We best save that for him,” Kingsbury said.

  “That’s for sure,” Root agreed. “He’ll be one mad kingfish gone alligator-horse if’n we throw that away!”

  “He might even wear it on a cord round his neck,” Hames predicted.

  They washed the wound out with hot water, then pried open Zane’s lips so they could extract a little of the tobacco quid he had pulverized inside his cheek before passing out. Kingsbury pressed the dark, soupy leaf and spittle down into the laceration. They finished by cutting a strip of cloth from the bottom of Ebenezer’s spare shirt and knotting it around his leg. With a pair of blankets pulled over their leader, the three boatmen decided they would draw lots to take watch until dawn, when they would once more set off downriver.

  Root happily sat up the first pull, and Kingsbury took the second watch. An hour or more back now, Hames had awakened Titus with an insistent nudge.

  “Cold,” Bass had muttered as he sat up, slowly coming awake.

  “Real cold,” Kingsbury said as he slid past the youngster. “And cold does a good job keeping you awake.”

  But it hadn’t.

  He awoke himself with a start, hearing himself snore. He sputtered, then fell silent, still half-asleep, listening to the other men snoring. He wondered if Ebenezer’s was that loudest rumble, as much of that rye as he had swallowed down. As he let his eyelids slip back down and his chin go back to resting against his chest, Bass heard the muffled scrape of another sawyer against the side of the boat. It bumped so quietly, he wasn’t sure. Then decided it was the tumble of the sawyer’s roots, hitting again, here, then a third place along the side.

  He glanced up at the starry sky to the east across the river where the sun would emerge—if it ever chose to—watching his frosty breath as he pulled the blanket up against his ears.

  And froze in place.

  Staring into the blackness of that moonless night. Holding his breath, Titus watched the shadow take form at the gunnel, pouring over the top of the poplar plank like a big bubble in a kettle of stew ready to boil over the fire, emerging slowly from the surface of the stew, just as this shadow emerged from the top of the gunnel back there near the stern. As if it were punching an inky black hole out of that cold sky dusted with a sugary coating of stars.

  He swallowed, feeling his throat constrict in fear.

  The shadow congealed in the black of that night, becoming a head, then one arm, and another—eventually pulling itself atop the gunnel. Beyond it another shadow. Then three more appeared at the stern. Heads turning this way, then that. Finally slipping themselves soundlessly atop the side of the boat. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw bows at the ends of the arms. Saw them already strung with arrows. And then a shaft, perhaps a lance. No. Not that long. Those had to be the muskets.

  Letting the blanket fall from his shoulders, he brought the hammer back to full cock in one motion as he lowered the muzzle onto the closest of the shadows and pulled in one motion. In his rush he forgot to close his eyes for the muzzle flash. That much sudden light hurt them as everything went black. The last he saw was the shadow pitching backward, spilling over the gunnel, where it disappeared among all that blackness beyond.

  Around him erupted cries and yelps as the boatmen came awake and the Chickasaw screeched their war cries. At least a half dozen were on board before the other three boatmen fought their way out of the blankets and began a heroic defense of their boat.

  Arrows thwacked into wood all around him, a gun roared, then another. He had no idea whose weapon it was: boatman or Indian. Men grunted as bodies slammed together in a match of strength pitted against surprise. Beneath the dull starshine he watched a tomahawk go into the air at the end of a warrior’s arm—a gunshot—the tomahawk stopped its arc, then fell backward … the arm and the warrior spilled over the side of the boat.

  Titus found his knife in his hand as he watched an Indian hurtling onto Kingsbury’s back—something huge held out at the end of his arm.

  On instinct Titus lunged forward, felt the blade that had sliced an arrowhead out of a man’s leg with so much struggle now dig between another man’s ribs almost effortlessly. He didn’t know if he pulled the Indian off Kingsbury or if the boatman flung the Indian back to free himself like a dog shaking off water, but Titus fell over backward, his arm locked around the Indian’s neck. Rolling to the side, he felt the warrior quiver, tense, then go limp.

  Bass was on his feet, wheeling to leap beneath the awning, his eyes searching the red-tinged darkness for sign of Ebenezer Zane. In a tangle of arms and bodies the lump on the far side of the awning struggled beneath its blankets, crying out in pain, grunting under two attackers who pinned the pilot down, one of them raising his arm to strike a second time, then a third with something that cracked dully against Zane’s head. Bass swept forward, tripping on the planks and falling against one attacker while the second whirled and fled. Bass’s knife sank into the Indian’s back but seemed to take no immediate effect. Titus spun on that first, fleeing warrior.

  Drawing the knife back, Titus reached out and snagged a handful of hair as the Indian cleared the awning. Yanking the head toward him, Bass slashed at the Indian’s neck once, then a second time. He was preparing for a third journey with that skinning blade when he sensed the warm gush spill across the back of his hand and wrist in the cold night. The body went limp beneath him.

  Spinning to find another attacker, Titus cried, “Ebenezer!”

  He had time only to yell out the man’s name once before he felt the searing pain against his shoulder, delivered with enough stunning force that he was flung against the pilot’s body. Spinning, Titus watched his attacker draw back a long, stone-studded war club for a second swing. Without thinking, Bass tried to raise his left arm to ward off the blow. But the arm would not respond to his command without a frantic, burning tongue of fire coursing through his shoulder. Suddenly crouching, Titus hurled himself at the Indian, slashing back and forth with the knife at the end of his one good arm while the attacker stumbled backward beneath the savage ferocity of the white man’s attack, swinging his long club side to side in a vain attempt at fending off the white man’s knife. At the end of one wide arc with that club, Titus dived, his arm extended.

  The blade struck, slid to the side a little, then sank into the
Indian’s chest. He drew it out. Ran it home a second time. Drew it out as the Indian stumbled backward. Again he plunged it into the chest. Pulled it back, then jammed it into the enemy with all his might. Bass watched the Indian finally sink to his knees, the front of his buckskins glistening in the pewter light of that cold starshine. The warrior keeled to the side, his eyes opened wide, and he lay completely still.

  At that moment it seemed the boat grew quiet around him. So quiet he could hear the lap of water against the poplar planks. Some man’s raspy breathing nearby. The groan of another. Then a scrape against the side of the boat. The very noise he’d heard just before the Indians had come aboard. His mind swimming with a charge of hot adrenaline, his heart squeezed with terror in his chest, Titus knew the warriors were in canoes.

  And now more of them were about to come over the gunnels!

  Leaping from the awning, he reached the stern, ready to hack at the next warriors to climb out of their canoes. When the voice startled him.

  “That you, T-titus?”

  “Heman?”

  He growled, “Pull me up, goddammit!”

  Ovatt stood precariously, his legs shaky, in one of the canoes, holding one of his arms up the side of the flatboat. As Bass pulled, Heman clambered over the side and into the broadhorn with a grunt. Gasping, he asked, “Where the others?”

  Only then did Titus turn, drenched with the chill of that darkness, fully realizing the significance of the great, cold, inky black silence around them.

  “Kingsbury?” he called.

  “Hames?” Ovatt cried in desperation.

  “Here,” came the reply. A shadow appeared halfway down the far side of the boat, hand to its head. “I … I need some help, boys.”

  Bass watched the shadow pitch to its knees, struggle up again, before he reached Kingsbury. “Only got one good arm right now,” Titus apologized for his struggle in getting the other man to his feet.

  “Me too,” Kingsbury replied. Into the dim starshine he turned, showing his right arm, dark stains tracing its length from shoulder to wrist. “Cain’t move it too good.”

  “Then don’t,” Ovatt ordered.

  “Reuben?”

  They heard a splash from the bow.

  “I’m here,” came the growl. “Just throwing one of the dead bastards overboard.”

  Root turned about, darkening a patch of the starry sky as he strode back toward the stern atop kegs and casks and crates.

  “You hurt?” Kingsbury asked as he tore his own bloody sleeve asunder.

  “I been better,” Root growled. “A few scratches. Nothing I ain’t ever had afore in a good brawl. You boys?”

  “Looks to be Hames got the worse of it,” Ovatt explained as he finished tearing the sleeve from Kingsbury’s shirt, looping it quickly around the upper arm. “Gonna have to stop this bleeding for you. Me—I just head-butted a few of them red bastards and followed ’em over the side into the shallow water, where we tussled.”

  “You finish a few of ’em off?” Kingsbury asked.

  “They ain’t none of ’em left I can see of,” Ovatt replied gruffly.

  Root turned to the youngster. “Your arm—you stuck, Titus?”

  “Just hit my arm, maybe my shoulder. A club. It’ll be all right come morning.”

  “Ain’t long till morning,” Kingsbury said, settling clumsily to the deck. His head weaved wearily. “Well, now, Titus—that were your first Injun fight—”

  “How ’bout Ebenezer?” Ovatt interrupted suddenly as he rose from Kingsbury’s side, turning on his heel. “Eb—”

  “I pulled one of ’em off him,” Titus began to explain. “One what was smashing Zane with a club.”

  “Here that’un is,” Ovatt declared, dragging the body out of his way to step over it getting to the tick mattress where they had worked on the river pilot beneath candlelight.

  “Ebenezer?” Root called out, rushing to Ovatt’s side.

  “Maybeso he’s still drunk,” Kingsbury declared as he pushed up to join them.

  “Likely so,” Ovatt said as he rolled the man over, pulling the blankets down gently. He held his ear over Zane’s face, listened. Then jerked back, his hands feeling around the pilot’s head in the dark. “Shit.”

  “What?” Titus asked, inching forward a step.

  Ovatt wiped his hands on the front of his coat. “Ebenezer’s done for.”

  “Dead?” Root demanded.

  “Just as dead as that son of a bitch there,” Ovatt growled as he whirled and kicked the dead Indian with all he could muster.

  Whimpering like a wounded animal, Heman fell atop the Chickasaw’s body, pummeling it with his fists. Then seized the Indian’s ears and drove the head down onto the deck repeatedly as Root and Titus struggled to pull him off the body.

  When Ovatt finally let the mighty Root yank him away, he sank into Reuben’s arms. Then he spat on the body, spat again. “Killed the best man on the river! That’s what you done!”

  Completely numbed, Bass stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, not believing what the others were saying. It simply couldn’t be. Not Ebenezer Zane! Not the man who had taken him under his wing, promised to teach him the rivers, the flatboat trade, to introduce him to the right whores in Natchez and on down to New Orleans. The man who these last few weeks had become like a real father to him. Not Ebenezer!

  “I’ll throw this bastard over with the rest,” Root said as Ovatt crumpled next to Zane’s body.

  “We gotta get downriver,” Kingsbury commanded as he crawled back in under the awning. “Can’t stay here now.”

  “Burn them canoes afore we go,” Root said.

  “Just scuttle ’em,” Ovatt growled with a shake of his head, anger making the man tremble. “They’ll sink sure enough.”

  “Ebenezer?” Titus asked in the midst of all their talk, taking another step forward.

  “There might be more coming,” Kingsbury declared.

  “Ebenezer … dead?” Bass repeated with another step, staring at the body in the dim, starry light.

  “Nawww,” Root disagreed with Kingsbury. “Ain’t no more coming. This is the same goddamned bunch the boy here run onto out hunting. They come downriver follering us. Ain’t no more coming.”

  “Still the same,” Kingsbury said, his voice edged with pain. “We gotta get on down past the Chickasaw Bluffs.* Safer water.”

  “Hames might be right,” Root said. “Them jumping us like this might just mean them red devils are out to put the steal on some of the river traffic.”

  “Awright—we’ll go,” Ovatt finally said as Titus reached his side. He looked up as the youth knelt beside Zane’s body. “Decent thing to do … we gotta take Ebenezer on down. Figure out what we oughtta do then.”

  “What we gotta do from here on out,” Kingsbury corrected with a wince of pain as he rubbed the shirt bandage around his arm. “With the boat. And this load.”

  Barely hearing any of the others’ talk, Titus sank to his knees, reaching out his hand, pulling the blanket back from the pilot’s face. “Didn’t have a chance.”

  “What would Ebenezer Zane want us to do?” Ovatt asked.

  Bass peered into the crushed and battered face of Ebenezer Zane, feeling the tears of frustration, of loss, come over him, ease slowly from his eyes.

  “He’d want us to finish the trip,” Root replied. “You always finish what you start—Ebenezer Zane always said.”

  A hand came out to rest on Bass’s shoulder. Then a second. He looked up to find Ovatt standing over him now, Root as well. Kingsbury slid up nearby, clutching his upper arm tightly.

  “He liked you, Titus,” Hames said. “I never knowed Ebenezer Zane to take to young’uns afore.”

  “But he liked you, for certain on that,” Ovatt said, patting Titus on the shoulder.

  “Said you’d do to ride this goddamned river with,” Reuben added quietly. He patted the youth on the back of the head as Titus hunched over, beginning to cry.

  Heman
added, “Ain’t nothing better Ebenezer could say ’bout a man.”

  Hames Kingsbury dragged a bloody hand beneath his nose angrily, then snorted, “And by damn, fellas—that’s something Ebenezer Zane was right about from the start. You’ll do to ride this goddamned river with, Titus Bass.”

  More than a day before Titus’s hunt had set a terrible wheel in motion, Ebenezer Zane had piloted them out of the mouth of the Ohio—for the last time.

  They floated on downriver another day after the Chickasaw attack, deciding to take their chances that night by anchoring at the downstream end of a tree-lined sandbar where they figured no redskin on the river would find it easy to discover them tied up among the clutter of living brush and dead sawyers.

  After scuttling the three canoes that cold night of the attack, they had wrapped the body within a section of oiled Russian sheeting Ebenezer kept stowed away for repairs to the awning, binding the dead pilot tightly within his shroud using a wrap of one-inch hemp before carrying Zane out to lay atop some casks containing cured Kentucky smoking leaf.

  After that short autumn day of denying what needed doing, the four of them gathered beneath the oiled awning at their sandbox fire and boiled coffee, finally speaking of the unspeakable.

  “Never thought he’d go this way,” Kingsbury admitted softly.

  “Still can’t believe it,” Root added, as if it soured his stomach.

  Ovatt looked into the other faces, asking, “What you figure we ought’n do with him?”

  The three only shrugged, stared back into the fire, each man deeply possessed of his own thoughts.

  Eventually Titus asked, “What you think Ebenezer would want you to do for him?”

  One by one in turn the three looked up from their reverie and stared at the youth.

  “I just figured—you all knowed him much better’n me,” Bass explained. “Thinking one of you should have an idea what Ebenezer’d want done. Maybe we ought’n talk about getting him back to his family for burying.”

  “He ain’t got no family,” Root explained. “Heman told you ’bout his woman … what happed to his boys.”