“I ain’t no such a thing!”
Elbridge got into the ribbing. “You’re sure ’nough caused us a heap a trouble: going off to court that man’s li’l girl!”
“Ain’t been courtin’ nobody!”
“Maybe you just better leave the womens alone,” Graham joked.
“I told you stupid niggers—”
“Speaking of women,” Hatcher said suddenly, quieting the rest. He turned quickly to Workman. “What the hell we gonna do for the rest of the winter here ’thout women?”
“Glory thunder!” Caleb roared as it struck him like a load of adobe bricks. “No women to dip my stinger in?”
Isaac grumbled, “See, Scratch? All your damned fault!”
“Hold it,” Workman hushed them, waving his arms. “Maybe I can get Louisa to bring some of her girls out here ever’ now and then.”
“Sure,” Caleb cheered. “We got the likker here!”
Then Solomon joined in, “And Willy’ll bring the womens!”
“Workman says he’s gonna round us up some plunder for the spring hunt too!” Hatcher added.
“Maybeso we’ll make a winter of it after all!” Elbridge agreed.
“But ain’t none of this my fault,” Bass protested. “Ain’t done nothing to make that Mex gal go sweet on me!”
“Hell, Titus Bass,” Hatcher said, laying a hand on Scratch’s shoulder, “I might be mad as a swarm of wasps at ye for making eyes at that woman—”
“I didn’t make no eyes at her!”
With a loud laugh Hatcher nodded. “Simmer down, Scratch. I know ye ain’t done a damned thing to put us in this fix. Truth is, ye’re too damned mud-homely for any but a blind woman to fall in love with!”
Just like Caleb Wood and his saddlebag filled with notched sticks, William Workman kept track of such things. Keeping count, knowing what year it was, even what month it was. Hell, the whiskey maker was as hard about such things as was the padre and his church. Ciphering such things as if they really mattered—marking off days on some calendar.
When all a man had to do was watch the sky, feel the change in the air. Maybe even see how the sun was pushing a little more toward the north in its track now that it didn’t snow near as hard or as often as it used to. One might even believe the days were getting longer too—if a man believed in such superstition.
But the whiskey maker told them it was drawing close to the end of February, in the year of eighteen and twenty-nine. With the coming of that spring, Bass realized he had been gone from St. Louis four years.
In those quiet moments of remembrance and reflection, Scratch looked around the cavern at what any of them had to show for their seasons in the high country. Especially him. Nearly wiped out more’n twice. But at least he still had the rifle he’d come west with … and he had Hannah too. She’d grown seal fat and sleek over a winter of leisure. Their saddle horses and pack animals all healed up too—those niggling sores and bites and skin ulcers gone the way of the Mexicans’ holiday celebration in Taos. Gone the way of the new year too. Another raucous, liquor-soaked, wenching new year of it they had with Mama Louisa’s whores and William Workman’s finest squeezings to welcome in eighteen and twenty-nine.
Which meant he was thirty-five now. Nowhere near as young as most of those he had watched head upriver from St. Louis. Not near as young as he hoped he could have always stayed. But, he figured, if a man had him only a certain number of winters—if the years were indeed allotted out to each man—then a man must surely choose on his own hook just how to spend what was given him. Indeed, over time Scratch had made peace with that. A man who asked too much out of life was clearly an unhappy sort.
But a man who discovered the richness in every new day he was granted … the sort of man who gave thanks at every sunset—now, to Scratch’s way of thinking that was a man who was doubly blessed.
They weren’t in all that bad a shape when they got down to going through all their plunder right after the turn of the year. Not that they couldn’t use a little more of this and some of that. But with what Workman already had—and what he could buy either in Taos or on down the road to Santa Fe, where most of the merchants didn’t know word one of the troublesome Americans up at Taos—Hatcher’s bunch laid in all of what they figured they would need to get them through to rendezvous slated to gather that year on the Popo Agie.
Lead and powder, a lot of coffee and a little of that Mexican sugar, sixty-weight sacks of salt from the Chihuahua mines, flints and wiping sticks and assortments of screws for their guns, along with some repairs Bass made to all the aging and broken traps the outfit packed along from season to season. Sure did keep himself warm sweating over Workman’s forge through winter’s coldest days while the others repaired packsaddles and tack, sending the whiskey maker out to buy what he could of Spanish horse gear for the coming trip.
Returning from the nearby Pueblo, Workman brought back his mule loaded high with the colorful wool blankets traded from the Navajo who lived far to the west—woven so thick they were all but impervious to water. And with some two dozen woolly skins the whiskey maker bartered off sheep ranchers, hides that the trappers could stretch and tan to a supple softness, Hatcher’s men now had ideal pads to place beneath their packsaddles.
Over the long winter Kinkead hadn’t changed his mind about staying, no matter what any of them said, no matter the growing excitement as the time to depart drew nigh. Matthew was staying behind this trip out. Perhaps for good. His narrow brush with the Blackfeet had only made him pine for his Rosa all the more. Kinkead was determined to stay behind and do what he could to support his wife right there in Taos.
Workman explained that it was likely time to be breaking for the north—it being the second week of March—when Hatcher rushed into the cavern one fine afternoon and demanded they all come outside and take themselves a whiff of the air.
“If it don’t smell like spring’s coming!” Hatcher gushed as they all hurried out into the sun, a chill breeze wending its way down the creekbottom. “If it ain’t time to light out—then … I’ll eat Caleb Wood’s longhandles!”
“That sure as hell is a safe bet,” Elbridge assured. “Can’t doubt it’s spring!”
Rufus agreed, “And a man sure don’t wanna take a chance on losing that bet—having to eat that man’s longhandles!”
“Really time to go, Jack?” Bass inquired.
“Damn right it is.”
Solomon asked, “When you figger?”
Hatcher turned and looked them over. “How long it take ye boys to be ready?”
Caleb asked the others, “Day after tomorry?”
They all nodded.
“Then it’s settled—day after tomorrow,” Hatcher affirmed. Then he looked at Workman. “Anything ye need us to do here for ye … afore we pull out?”
“Can’t think of anything needs doing, nothing needs fixing neither. ’Bout time you niggers got out from being under my feet!” the whiskey maker said with a hint of sadness.
“Gonna miss ye, Willy,” Hatcher said, slapping Workman on the shoulder.
“Been good having you boys here too,” Workman admitted quietly.
Solomon asked, “Even what with all the trouble we caused you?”
“What trouble?” he repeated. “What trouble was that?”
“The trouble Titus Bass brewed up for us at the governor’s!” Elbridge roared.
“Wasn’t no trouble,” Workman replied, turning to look at Scratch. “The girl stayed away just like her father warned her to, and likely things be all settled down come next winter when you boys come back.”
“Likely won’t be back till winter after next,” Hatcher explained, seeing the disappointment it brought Workman. “We’ll stay north, trap long as we can, Willy.”
The whiskey maker nodded a little sadly. “All right then. You all got work to do, I’m sure of that. And I have me some kegs to fill for you.”
“Some l-likker for us?” Rufus asked.
“Ain’t gonna let you boys go ’thout nothing for your trip!”
Early the next morning they began work on their saddles and tack, assuring themselves that all their equipment was trail-ready. That done, they all gathered in a circle with their firearms—each man to show the others that his weapons were cleaned, locks tight, and everything in top order. This was no drill without life-and-death necessity: the entire outfit might well depend upon the weapon of a single man.
From there they broke out the powder and lead, coffee, salt, and sugar, along with what other heavy items they would be carrying—placing it all into small packs that could be divided among the animals following them north.
That finished just past sunset, Workman called them in for supper and some lightning, along with some sugar-and cinnamon-coated treats he had purchased in town.
As Hatcher’s men settled on the floor with their cups of aguardiente and their mugs of steaming coffee, Workman went to the corner and returned with eight bags, each the size of a man’s thigh.
The first was accepted by Jack. “What’s this, Willy?”
“Look inside your own self, nigger,” Workman replied, handing out the lightweight burlap bags.
“Tobaccy!” Hatcher roared with loud approval. He pulled out a dark, fragrant twist of rolled and dried tobacco leaf, sniffing it hungrily.
“How much all this cost you?” Caleb asked as he accepted his sack.
“Not that much down in Santy Fee.”
“This much Mexican tobaccy had to cost you some,” Solomon declared.
“I already got my due out from your plews,” Workman explained.
Jack asked, “Ye saying we’re even?”
The whiskey maker looked at Hatcher. “We’re even, boys. I got more’n enough plews from you to cover everything else and this tobaccy.”
“You done a lot for us this winter, Willy,” Scratch said.
“Whiskey and women and now some smoke,” Caleb cheered.
“It ain’t only the things ye traded for us,” Hatcher explained. “You and Matthew saw to it them greaser soldiers didn’t come try rubbing us out.”
“Where is Matthew anyways?” Rufus asked.
“Here it is our going-off hoot and Matthew ain’t here,” Isaac said.
Workman replied, “Kinkead said to tell you he’d be here afore first light. Said he knows how Jack hates to burn daylight—so he’ll be here afore you pull out.”
Matthew Kinkead was good at his word. Always had been. And that cold mid-March morning was another painful tearing away for Titus Bass. They had fought Blackfeet together, covered more miles than any man back east might imagine, slept and ate and talked around countless fires in what had been more than a year of scuttling across trackless wastes and climbing over never-ending mountain ranges. But now Matthew was staying behind with his Rosa.
Titus knew he would miss the big bear of a man as much as he had ever missed anyone in his life of wandering.
“You listen up to what Mad Jack Hatcher tells you,” Kinkead instructed as he released Bass from a terrible squeeze.
“That’s right, ye best listen to me,” Hatcher echoed as he took up the reins to his saddle horse.
But Matthew continued as if he hadn’t heard Jack say a thing. “You listen to Hatcher … and then you damn well go do just the opposite!”
They all laughed together, but this time it wasn’t the easy laughter that comes from camaraderie on the trail. This was the strained laughter of men parting from good companions, longtime friends, compatriots in battle, men who had survived long, harsh winters together. Slowly Matthew made the rounds of those riders gathered in what was a long oval of horses and pack animals. Then he finally stepped back to join the whiskey maker at the stone threshold to Workman’s hut.
“We got miles to go, pilgrims!” Hatcher cried as he turned back to his horse, his voice cracking with sentiment. “And you sumbitches are burning my daylight!”
“Let’s ride!” another cried.
A voice called, “Hep-hepa, you trail niggers!”
“To the Shining Mountains!” Matthew Kinkead cried, dragging a hand beneath his big bulb of a nose and raising his arm overhead as the others filed out of the creekbottom, up the wide trail to the prairieland above.
“To the … the Shining Mountains!” Bass roared, his throat clogging as he leaned far out of his saddle to quickly shake Kinkead’s and Workman’s hands while he moved past.
“There’s beaver waiting!” Hatcher sang out from the head of their column.
Caleb hollered, “Here’s to likker-lovin’ coons like us!”
“Billy Sublette better hide his whiskey!” Isaac bellowed.
“Injun bucks better hide their daughters!” Rufus cheered.
As they went on and on like that, their loud voices careening off the stone walls of the creekside, Bass turned in his new Spanish saddle with a groan of stiff leather … gazing back at Workman and Kinkead. He pulled off his blanket mitten and raised a bare hand in the shocking cold of that dawn. Saw them both wave to him one last time as the trail took him around a bend and they fell out of sight.
Farewells never got any easier. No matter how old he got, farewells damn well never got any easier.
12
“H’ar ye now!”
Bass and Elbridge Gray turned at the sudden call of that strange voice, their hands gone to their pistols.
Out of the quakies emerged a horseman in gaily ornamented buckskins pulling behind him two more ponies, their packs gently swaying from side to side as they were brought to a halt near the two trappers on the grassy creekbank. Mexican conchos dotted the outer seam of his leggings dyed with red earth paint, the same color as the sleeves on his war shirt. Over the fringed shirt he wore a faded, soot-stained waistcoat complete with pewter buttons.
With the way this stranger had his stirrups buckled real short and high along the ribs of his horse, he appeared to be perched atop a saddle far too small for his long, bony legs. From both ears dangled large sky-blue rocks of turquoise suspended on narrow wires that bobbed and jiggled as the man turned this way and that, looking first at Gray, then at Bass.
“H’ar yourself,” Scratch replied as he relaxed the grip on his pistol. “You ain’t no Injun now, are you?”
“Ye took me for Injun, did ye?”
Elbridge pointed to his cheek with a finger, saying, “Why’s a white nigger wear Injun war paint?”
The stranger’s narrow, slitted eyes suddenly came to life, twinkling within a tanned face of well-soaped saddle leather as he studied the pair for what seemed like the longest time. Then he spoke.
“Been living with Injuns for lotta moons.”
“You paint up like ’em?” Gray asked.
“I paint up like ’em, yeah,” the stranger replied matter-of-factly as he pulled his massive wolf-skin cap off and pointed to the bright purple of the vermilion pigment he had rubbed along the part in his hair.
“You’re sure a purty Injun, for a white man,” Scratch declared.
He turned to Bass. “I h’aint see’d a real honest-to-God white man in just shy of a year, boys. Where ye hail from?”
“The Illinois,” Gray answered, taking a step closer to the horseman. “By way of Taos this past winter.”
He nodded, his eyes quickly coming back to rest on Bass while he spit a thin stream of brown into the grass beside his saddle horse. “An’ you?”
“Kentucky, by way of St. Louie … and a winter in Taos.”
“Taos a good place for winter doin’s,” the stranger agreed. “Wha’chore names?”
“Titus Bass,” Scratch answered as he stepped up beside the horse and held a hand up to the rider. “And this here is Elbridge Gray.”
“Ye on yer own hook, ye two?” asked the stranger.
“No,” Bass replied, sensing his guard hairs bristle as he glanced past the horseman to the timbered hillside, wary. “S’pose you tell us your name.”
“Williams. William Shirley Williams,
” he answered, innocently smiling.
“Sweet Marie!” Elbridge exclaimed. “That there’s a hull passel of Williams in that goddamned name!”
The smile faded as the horseman turned his straight-faced, expressionless stare back to Gray. Then, with a droll purse to his lips, he replied, “That be my name. But my friends call me Bill. I figger any white man up here got a good chance to be my friend—so whyn’t you two call me Bill?”
“Be pleased to call you Bill,” Bass replied, already liking the cut of the tall, skinny trapper. “My friends hale me as Scratch.”
Craning his neck to look up the aspen-choked hillside, Gray asked, “More niggers with you?”
“Nope. I ride alone now’days.”
“Leg on down here,” Bass proposed, stepping back. “We’re bound to finish setting our last two traps straightaway, then you can ride on up to camp with us. Make a night of it.”
Elbridge declared, “One of the t’others dropped a elk cow this morning. Some mighty fine eating—”
They both watched Williams visibly shudder, his whole body trembling, his face pinched.
With a wag of his head the rider said, “Good it weren’t no bull elk.”
“Bull ain’t near as good eating,” Bass stated.
“Don’t ye fellers never go kill a bull with one antler broke off and a’hanging like so,” he said, a sudden sharp and warning edge come to his voice as he balanced his long fullstock rifle across the tops of his bony thighs and raised both his arms to their full length on either side of his head, spreading his fingers as if they were antler points. Then he crooked the left arm at the elbow, swaying it crazily.
“Why?” Elbridge asked, cocking his head slightly. “He a bull in these parts what you got your own sights on?”
“No,” Williams said evenly, his eyebrows lowered meaningfully. “One of these days I’ll go under my own self, boys. And spirits awready showed me how I’m coming back.”
In utter disbelief Gray squeaked, “C-coming back?”
Crack in the Sky Page 28
