“Please, don’t … don’t go,” he implored with that urgency of the flesh.
Then, with her two hands, she pantomimed poking the index finger of one hand into an invisible something she held in the other. For a moment he imagined she was making the sign for copulation…. Then he understood.
“The awl!” he whispered. “You want the awl too!”
He retrieved it from his pouch and laid it in one hand, grabbing the ribbon in the other, and presented them both to her.
For a painful moment the woman stared down at the awl and ribbon. Just stared.
And finally she removed the two objects from his palms, placing them to the side atop her blanket, then rose on her knees to grasp the bottom of her dress once more, shimmying out beneath it as he suddenly went desert-tongued at the sight of her quivering breasts freed again for his touch … sensing his own renewed hardness, his own feral heat about to overwhelm him.
As savage as he attacked her that first time, now he discovered he was able to savor this delicious anticipation of delay rather than feeling himself hopelessly swept up and helplessly hurtled forth by a mysterious force he could in no way control.
Again she reached out to wrap her fingers around his swollen readiness, easing him forward to rub against that moistening cleft in her flesh for a time while she gently gyrated her hips, gradually driving him mad with desire. With one volcanic lunge he was finally inside her, feeling his groin locked against hers as the woman clamped both of her hands on his buttocks, arching her back as she began to gyrate more violently beneath him. He was certain he would explode if she continued flinging herself up at him—
Instead, Bass locked his hands on her hips and rocked back, lifting her completely off the blanket as he sank backward until the woman straddled him. For a sudden, frightening moment she did not move, gazing down at him in shock. But when he ground his hips up against her, raising her off the blankets, he got the notion across to her. The Shoshone woman apparently liked the sensation of their position so much that she herself began to buck and dance there atop his upright flesh, clamped tightly about him as she moved forward and back, side to side, and even tried slowly to grind herself round and round in small, and very insistent, circles.
Of a sudden she was recklessly bouncing on top of his hardness, rocking up so far on her knees that she stroked the entire length of him, so far, in fact, that he feared she would pull him out … yet each time she slammed herself back down onto his hips. Up and down she pumped him, her eyes compressing into half slits, her breathing become ragged as he felt himself rising toward a furied crescendo.
Then she was whimpering, and for a moment he became afraid he had hurt the young woman with the vigor of their coupling. He stopped and seized hold of her shoulders, worried—when she opened her eyes and stared down at him. Shaking her head, she smiled as she hadn’t ever smiled at him before … and immediately went right back to bouncing atop his rigid manhood.
This time they rose together, climbing toward a fiery release. The initial whimper that had begun low in her throat was now a keening, breathless, raspy cry. And that grunt of his beast on the verge of achieving its primal satisfaction became like shrill hammer strikes on an anvil.
Slamming herself down onto his penis, the woman instantly began to shudder and quake, little high-pitched wails squeaking past her lips…. Then he was thrusting himself against her every bit as forcefully, clawing at her breasts, seizing her upper arms and pulling her close as he roared into her like a ferocious torrent dammed for far too long.
She collapsed against him, sinking weak and drained, at just the instant he felt that last explosion rocking him to his core.
Bass cradled the woman atop him until their flesh cooled and the air chilled with the coming of morning there beside the Popo Agie. He pulled her blanket over them both and let her sleep atop him. Surrendering to complete and utter exhaustion, Scratch sighed and closed his eyes, feeling the weariness washing over him, sensing sleep flooding every part of his body.
A woman like this was clearly a poison for a man: exactly the sort of creature who confounded, confused, and ailed a simple man with simple needs, just those very needs that made him crave a woman like her in the worst way … yet at the very same time, she was just the sort of cure for that very poison she inflicted—a soothing balm for all that ailed him. A poultice drawing out all the months of pent-up hunger and despair with such satisfaction that Scratch knew he would never again find such complete and utter relief.
Bass went to sleep as the sky far to the east began to gray, realizing that if he ever again found a woman who could bring him the sort of satisfaction he had just experienced, he wouldn’t hesitate a moment to trade his pistol for her.
Almost two weeks later, William Sublette and Robert Campbell parted company on the Popo Agie. The Irishman was intent on returning to his native soil—much disturbed at a number of letters that had reached him in the mail his good friend had packed overland to rendezvous. Instead of accompanying the mule train bound for the States himself that July, Sublette installed Campbell as booshway over those he assigned to see those forty-five paltry packs of beaver all the way to St. Louis.
By any measure, a miserable take for a whole year in the mountains.
Of the three company owners, it appeared only Sublette had secured any profit for their joint efforts—and all of that through the dogged efforts of Campbell’s Powder River brigade. It was hoped that David Jackson was still somewhere north in that Flathead country where the Blackfeet were wont to go, but after two years no one expected ever again to lay eyes on Jedediah Smith and his outfit … not this side of the great by-and-by.
At the same time Campbell was to backtrack east toward the Sweetwater and the Platte, Sublette dispatched his younger brother, Milton, along with German-born Henry Fraeb and Frenchman Jean Baptiste Gervais, north—leading a forty-man brigade to hunt the Bighorn basin in three smaller outfits that fall. Now William could himself lead the rest of his hardened veterans and a crew of green recruits to search for some sign of what had become of his long-overdue partner—reported to be somewhere in the country of the upper Snake River.
The Blackfeet hadn’t rubbed out the industrious Jackson!
After more than a week of revelry beside the Popo Agie, word had come that the ever-enterprising brigade leader would be waiting on the Snake instead of coming to the prearranged valley of the Prairie Chicken—news of that change in plans arriving with Tom Fitzpatrick, who weeks before, as Jackson’s brigade had begun to work its way south from Flathead country, was dispatched as a lone express rider sent to reach Sublette east of the Wind River Mountains.
“Tell Billy I’ll meet him on the Snake below the Pilot Knobs.”
With that electrifying report Sublette had promptly hurried to wrap up the last of his trading with what free men wandered in to rendezvous so he could turn west himself. This was great news! Not only was Davy Jackson still alive and kicking—but their company would now have more to show for their efforts than those puny forty-five packs of beaver.
Why—with what furs Jackson was likely to have with him, the two partners might even have enough left over after paying off General William H. Ashley that they could show a profit for the year! Things were looking up.
Jack Hatcher and his outfit of a half-dozen free trappers had decided they would mosey along behind the booshway’s brigade, with the idea in mind that they could divide off from the company men after reaching the Snake, laying plans to trap into the autumn season there on the eastern fringe of Hudson’s Bay territory.
“That Snake sure is purty country,” Mad Jack had boasted the morning Sublette and more than fifty company men were to start into the high country for the headwaters of the Wind River. “Eegod—them three bee-you-tee-full breasties just pointing up there agin’ the sky like tits on a squaw ye’re thumping! My, but that’s country the likes I ain’t seen none of anywhere else!”
As the twenty-eight-year-old Milto
n struck out down the Popo Agie, which would take his outfit north for the Bighorn and Yellowstone country, Campbell whipped the balky mules south by east for the States* that same morning.
An hour later Bill Sublette himself turned his nose north by west, ascending the Wind River with some free trappers in tow until he crossed over the mountains and dropped down the Buffalo Fork to strike the Snake River in the northern part of what was already widely known as Davy Jackson’s Hole. On the shores of Jackson’s Lake, the booshway allowed his outfit to recruit and recuperate for a few days before he would set off again in his search.
Where was Davy? He sent word that he would meet Sublette on the Snake below the Pilot Knobs!
Trouble was, by the time he reached Jackson’s Hole, the booshway realized there were two sides to that narrow mountain range. And to top off the dilemma—the Snake River tumbled through a valley on both sides of the Tetons.
So when William Sublette struck that river and failed to find any sign of Jackson as he doggedly continued on down the Snake, the booshway came to the conclusion that his only hope lay in crossing the mountains to continue his search on the western slope.
There in what the mountain trappers were just beginning to call Pierre’s Hole … the dead were about to be resurrected.
“Who is that up yonder?”
Those company men at the head of the caravan with Sublette ignited a buzz that shot back the length of their pack train eventually to reach the half-dozen free trappers led by Jack Hatcher.
Bass squinted into the morning light, anxious with alarm—suddenly spying the distant horsemen. “Didn’t bump into a Injun war party, did we?”
A half a mile ahead along the foot of those peaks still snowcapped here late in summer, a force of more than half a hundred was spotted riding their way out of the north, several leaders immediately spurring away from the rest as they put their horses into an easy lope. At two hundred yards Sublette’s men could see that the oncoming riders had hairy faces.
At a hundred yards out, those buckskinned strangers raised their rifles and fired a joyous salute into the air.
Now the company men were roaring in delight up and down the caravan—recognizing old friends of the trail.
“Tom Fitzpatrick says it looks to be Davy Jackson hisself!” came word from one of the excited brigade men as the caravan was whipped into a lope.
Immediately a curious Hatcher and the rest gave heels to their mounts, spurring toward the action.
Caleb Wood roared, “Fitz oughtta know if it’s them—he wintered with Jackson’s men!”
“Davy Jackson’s brigade, by God!” Elbridge cheered as they hammered toward the reunion.
Then, just about the time Sublette, Bridger, and Fitzpatrick all fired their rifles and reined to a halt to greet the overdue Jackson … they had themselves another shock that rattled each man jack of them all right down to the soles of his moccasins.
There beside Davy rode none other than Jedediah Strong Smith his own self! Come back from the land of the dead!
Why, there was more back pounding and hooting, hurrahing, and bear hugging that late morning in the shadow of the Tetons to last any man a lifetime!
Then and there the three reunited partners decided they’d camp and hold themselves a second rendezvous. Even if Billy Sublette didn’t have but a third of his supplies left, there would never be a better reason to hold a celebration in the mountains than when one of your own was come back from the dead!
“Hatcher? Is that you, Jack Hatcher?”
Bass got to his feet as the impressive stranger came to a halt on his horse some five yards away from where the seven were occupied unlashing packs and preparing to make camp themselves.
Hatcher stood, shading his eyes to stare up at the man who had the high sun at his back, his snowy mane radiant in the summer light as it spilled from beneath the wide, rolled-up brim of a crumpled felt hat.
Caleb Wood was the first to utter a sound as he came up on the far side of the stranger. “McAfferty?”
Then Hatcher bellowed, “Th-that really you, Asa?”
As the stranger slid from his saddle, Elbridge turned quickly to Titus and declared, “That’s the preacher fella we tol’t you of—one what kill’t that Ree medicine man.”
Scratch watched alone while the others knotted around McAfferty like acorns around an oak, shaking hands and pounding one another on the shoulder, all laughing and talking and jabbing at the same time in their joyful surprise.
“Didn’t ever figger to see you again!” Rufus confessed.
McAfferty asked, “What? Me rubbed out, Mr. Graham?”
“Nawww!” Jack roared. “I figgered ye give up on the mountains and run back east with yer tail tucked up atween yer legs!”
“Oooch! Mr. Hatcher, you sting me to the quick!” McAfferty shrieked, then started to laugh with an easy, contagious mirth that got the rest of them laughing with him.
Scratch had to admit that this McAfferty did have him an elegant, booming voice the likes of which would have enthralled and captivated far-flung frontier congregations and revival-camp meetings, without a doubt.
“Where in these hills ye been hiding yerself lately?” Jack inquired.
“Been up to Flathead country. Where I run onto Jackson’s men when they was riding south to find Sublette.”
Solomon slapped McAfferty on the back. “From the looks of it you still got all your purty white hair, Asa! And here I thort Flathead land was up there where them Blackfeets get a chance to lift that hair from you!”
Asa nodded, his dark eyes merry in that face starkly tanned against the radiant white beard. Then those eyes landed momentarily on the stranger who stood back from the others, observing the reunion of old friends.
“Up there near troubled land was I, that be God’s truth! ’And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.’” McAfferty said, quoting Biblical scripture. Then he looked at Hatcher, saying, “Who this be, Jack?”
They all turned and found Bass standing back, waiting alone.
Hatcher vigorously wagged his arm. “C’mon over here, Scratch. Want ye meet this nigger what use to ride with this bunch.”
“Scratch, he called you?” McAfferty asked as he held out his strong hand.
“Titus Bass,” he explained. “Scratch just the name what got hung on me not long after I come to the mountains.”
Asa winked at Caleb. “I’ll bet there’s a story there to tell, eh, Mr. Bass?”
Titus grinned. “Nothing more’n a bad case of the gray backs I had to get rid of.”
“Wait—” McAfferty said suddenly, his eyes flicking this way and that, the merry smile disappearing. “Where’s … ah, hell—they ain’t gone under, have they? Not Matthew and Johnny Rowland?”
Isaac spoke up, “Them two still kicking!”
Asa cranked his head around the others. “Where have they gone? Off on some errand?”
“Ain’t with us no more,” Hatcher explained.
McAfferty’s eyes narrowed. “Not rubbed out?”
“No,” Caleb remarked. “Both of ’em stayed down to Taos.”
McAfferty asked, “Women?”
“Yeah, women,” Rufus answered with that knowing nod to his head.
His own eyes half-closed, McAfferty pronounced, “This gentler sex: what a curse they be to a man … and what a balm those sweet creatures are to all that ails us! ’For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.’”
“Asa—we had us some Snake women!” Rufus began. “Back at ronnyvoo in Snake country.”
“There’ll be more fornication here next day or so,” McAfferty declared.
Hatcher grinned. “Injuns coming?”
Asa nodded. “Flatheads was follering Jackson south. Likely make it a day or so behind us.”
“How many’s the lodge?” Solomon inquired.
“Enough to keep this bunch of hydrophobic wolves busy for some
time!” McAfferty roared. “Least sixty … seventy lodges.”
“Whoooeee! Flathead girls!” Isaac sang.
McAfferty continued, “Jackson got word there was a big village of Snakes coming here to the valley too.”
“Gonna be some shinin’ times now!” Caleb cried.
“‘Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness,’” McAfferty snarled.
“Weren’t but a few gals on the Popo Agie,” Hatcher explained.
“That where Sublette opened up his likker kegs?” Asa inquired.
“Ain’t all that good on your tongue,” Rufus said. “But it can sure ’nough kick you in the head!”
“Sublette have any likker left him?”
“Near as I know,” Hatcher said, “he’s got him least half of what he brung out from St. Louie.”
McAfferty wiped some fingers across his lips. “I got me a hankering to end this longtime dry, boys. Sublette’s up to trading, is he?”
“Damn right he is,” Caleb said. “You got plews?”
“I got plenty of plews, Mr. Wood. ‘The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: He bringest low, and lifteth up.’”
Hatcher turned to Bass and gestured a thumb at McAfferty. “’Sides allays spouting his Bible talk, Asa here allays was one of the best for bringing flat-tails to bait. Why, hell—I’ll bet he’s almost good as you, Scratch!”
Asa asked, “This here new man that good, is he?”
“Notch or two better’n you ever was, Asa,” Caleb bragged.
“That so?”
“McAfferty allays was the best at finding prime beaver country too,” Jack continued. “Shame when ye up and decided ye was leaving us to ride out on yer own hook, Asa.”
Slowly tearing his measuring eyes from Bass, McAfferty stated, “Man goes where a man is called to go. And if the Lord calls him to come alone … a man must listen to the commandment of the Lord his God.”
“Damn—but you still preachify as purty as you ever did!” Elbridge cried in glee.
Hatcher laid an arm over Bass’s shoulder and asked him, “Don’t that oily tongue of his’n just make ye wanna ask Preacher McAfferty to bring hisself on out to yer place for dinner on church meeting day?”
Crack in the Sky Page 40
