Nudging the pony upstream, Bass soon found a wide, sandy slope pocked with hundreds of huge prints. It was there he stopped, the horses’ hooves just barely in the water, as he studied the route across the river to the far bluffs more than two hundred yards beyond. Again he looked down at the damp hoofprints embedded in the moist sand. Then again out to the river, studying that brush emerging from sandbars and islands in the middle of the Platte, brush that barely poked its head above the turbulent flow at this season of mountain runoff far to the west.
“Awright,” he said quietly to them. “Let’s go.”
Just get across before anyone spotted them there among the brush and stunted trees on the bank.
They hadn’t gone but a third of the way across when the pony suddenly volved its head around and tried to peer back at its rider, eyes wide as clay mug-bottoms. On all sides around the three of them, the water seemed to boil, alive with silt and stinging sand. Then the pony stumbled on the shifting bottom, going down. It re-emerged from the water with its rider, both of them snorting water, muddy silt gushing from its muzzle. Bass coughed, spitting sand, his eyes gritty.
Then the horse got its footing with a jerk and fought hard at the reins to whirl about in that moment, straining to head back to the south bank rather than to push on any farther, any deeper.
“Goddammit!” he growled, yanking to snub up the rein, sawing on it with all his might as the pony fought against him, twisting nose around into the current.
Water immediately swept over the pony’s head once more. In the next heartbeat it felt as if the bottom came out from under them as the animal lost its footing on the roiling river bottom, legs clawing desperately at nothing but murky water, head bobbing frantically into the muddy current that rushed into its eyes and nostrils, streaming over Titus with a persistent tug that threatened to shove him loose, to unhorse him in the middle of that great river.
As he continued to cuss and grumble, spit and spew—one hand on the rein and the other on the rifle held over his head—Bass’s gut tightened on reflex. He was frightened—not knowing what to do about all that was going on beneath him, around him … unable to do a damned thing for the animal he rode as it fought the bit and refused his commands.
Now it became all he could do to hang on to the pony as the water swept him backward, off the cantle of the saddle. As the animal lunged forward into the murky water, the rifle went under as he clung desperately, that solitary arm straining against the muscular neck as the pony thrashed its head from side to side, fighting to free itself from the watery prison, from this strong eddy that forced the animal ever farther into the muddy current as they sidestepped deeper and deeper into the heart of the river … all while the wild-eyed mare whinnied and neighed behind them—her head bobbing barely above the froth as the Platte’s force heaved against her two great packs, tugging her farther and farther downstream from him.
Sideways in the stream he clung to the Indian pony with one arm around its neck, the long, thick lead rope to the packmare burning that bare hand as the current tugged and hurtled the mare away from him. Stretched across the surface of the mighty Platte, he felt himself swallow more and more of the gritty water, drowning his cries of terror.
God—how he hated deep water!
He had to let go of one or the other … then the decision was made for him as the river’s force pulled his desperate grip from the Indian pony’s mane. He let go the mare’s lead rope next, sensing the relief in his rope-burned hand, his strength failing as he desperately hugged the rifle to his chest, locked within both arms. His head just above water, Titus spun around slowly in the current, capturing one last glimpse of the pack animal as she bobbed out of the brown, frothy current, then went down again as she was wheeled in a tight circle beneath her heavy packs.
“Damn you, now!” he twisted his head to shout at the Indian pony behind him as it clawed for a moment at the air with its two forelegs.
He just might make it to the pony if he could stroke with one arm, try swimming toward the horse—get hold of the animal’s neck. Then he was spun about again. Felt something beneath one foot that must surely be the bottom … but as quickly it fell away again, and he slid under the water with the heavy rifle still gripped in his hand like life itself.
Another man’s words he remembered now as the water took him and the rifle, closing in over him—grit forcing him to clench his eyes tight as he tried again to yell out in numbing terror. Finding he could only sputter with a mouthful of murky, silt-laden water, Washburn had told him about this shirting bottom. Warned him about the quicksands that could spell danger to any man crossing the Platte.
“Try, goddammit!”
The words echoed in his memory, recalling how his pap had hollered to him as a small, skinny youngster that summer afternoon Titus had jumped into a riverside pool too deep for him. Remembering how he caught fleeting glimpses of his father and the others on the Ohio riverbank as Titus bobbed up and down, arms flailing as he fought for air, struggled to stay on the surface.
“You gotta try, goddammit!”
He was crying now—the burn of memory hot in his eyes. Knowing his pap was not there to dive in and drag him out of the Platte as he had been that fateful spring day so many, many years before. The last glimpse Titus had of his pap—watching his father yanking off his big boots and jerking down the galluses from his shoulders as he shucked out of his heavy canvas britches before leaping in after his eldest son.
“Do it your own self, Titus!”
With the one arm he began to stroke, wanting to open his eyes, daring not as the swirling sand slapped and scratched his face.
“I’m coming, boy! I’m coming for you!”
Bass felt something huge and powerful brush against him in the raging current, hurtling him aside—and knocking out what little air he had left in his lungs. Titus rolled over in the water, there just below the surface … but he kept on swinging with that one free arm, feeling his tired muscles grown so damned heavy. Weighing him down, dragging at him from that shifting, sandy, murky bottom where the darkness gathered and the mud conspired to bury him.
With that solitary arm he fought like he had never fought before. And suddenly burst back to the surface for a fleeting moment in time—blinking his stinging eyes against the sand and the foam, feeling the warm wind brush his cheek.
“I’m here, boy!”
Oh, how he had clung to his pap then as Thaddeus had dragged him to the shore. “I’m right here now, son. Just hold on to me and ever’thin’ be awright.”
One yard at a time Titus dragged the arm through the thickening water, back under the surface as the river rolled him over onto his side … praying to feel the air at his cheeks once more—beginning suddenly to catch glimpses of that big, shady clearing back in Boone County, scenes so frighteningly clear and vivid behind the eyelids he clamped shut so fiercely that he knew he was dying. Quick little vignettes of his old hound, Tink … the copper-muzzled mule his pap used to pull stumps … those elusive gray squirrels he hunted whenever he dared run away … the dark, deep grave where they laid his grandpap to the old man’s final rest. Remembering suddenly how that had been the very first time he ever remembered thinking on this thing called death. So afraid of it then as a youngster.
So terrified that it finally had him now.
Then he burst into the wind. Spewing dirty, murky water in a gush from his lungs that screamed out—sucking in air as he bobbed back down into the current, blinking his eyes … and catching a glimpse of the far bank.
There was no one there. Not his pap. Not his mam. Not none of the others that day so long, long ago. It was not the Ohio. This was the bank of the Platte—bare, but beckoning. Urging him on.
Clumsily switching the rifle to his left hand below the. surface, Titus began to stroke with the right arm—by far his stronger—pulling himself yard by yard toward the north bank, shoved relentlessly downriver, until he felt the sandy bottom drag beneath his toes.
With that first attempt to stand on the slowly shifting bottom, he slipped and nearly went under again. But on his second try he managed to lunge up on his hands and knees, suddenly heaving forward—vomiting dirty water.
Again and again … then at last he emptied his belly, coughed painfully with that gritty sting at his throat, and struggled to his feet, something beyond him compelling Titus to slog the rest of the way out of the churning Platte all crouched over, his stomach in spasms, chest gasping still, coughing up even more of the river’s grit.
At the edge of the water Titus collapsed, clutching the rifle against him as he slowly regained his breath. As he rolled over on his side his stomach brought up a last heave of the bile and sand. Dragging a hand across his messy bearded chin, Titus caught sight of the packmare’s head far downstream as she fought her way within the grasp of the river, bobbing now and then in the roiling current.
Pushing himself up from the sandy, grassy bank, his elbow slipped as he struggled to rise, spilling down on his knees again. Bass grumbled a curse as he hauled himself back up, coughing and spitting as he used the rifle as a crutch to stand. His legs felt so weary, they almost did not respond to his commands as he swung his bare arms, hacking away at the brush, fighting his way through the tangle of undergrowth to struggle up the side of the bank, where he immediately turned to hobble downstream.
Desperation pulled him onward when his muscles threatened to fail. From time to time he caught a brief glimpse of the mare through the maze of leafy brush as the current drew her closer and closer to the north bank, swimming with all her might against the river that pushed downstream faster than she was making any headway toward the north bank.
For only a moment did he stop, parting the brush with a hand and the long fullstock rifle, peering upstream and down for some glimpse of the Indian pony. Squinting against the harsh sunlight glittering from the frothy, muddy surface, Bass could not find a clue to what happened to the horse … then he heard the distant whinny. His attention snapped back to the packmare far, far downstream now.
Through the brush that clawed at his face and the backs of his hands, raking his bare white flesh … in and out of the thick, soggy mud that relentlessly pulled at each one of his feet, dragging each foot out with a sucking sound as he struggled on, Titus hurried despite the strain ing wheeze in his chest, the terrible, fiery pain in his weakening legs. He heard the packmare cry out again.
No more could he see her, desperately fearing she had whinnied that one last time before the river had conquered her final shred of strength and pulled her under. All that weight in those packs. And she already so old.
But perhaps he could … dare he hope? Trusting to nothing but luck? Maybe he would find her carcass snagged on some river debris downstream and from the packs take what he needed to somehow survive in this open, endless, unforgiving land. He pushed on through the brush that clawed bloody welts along every inch of his flesh—downriver, downriver …
When at last he spotted her, the mare lay with her rump still in the river. One side of her packs had torn loose, the ropes floating on the Platte’s surface like leafless grapevine. Sensing the coming of even greater despair, Titus told himself that at least he had some of his plunder. No animals, but he wouldn’t be entirely naked, completely destitute here in the wilderness. It was cheering enough to help him lunge through the brush onto the sandy bank. To get his hands on what he had left—now things would not be all so bad—
She lifted her head wearily and stared at him with one big eye a moment, causing him to jerk to a sudden halt there on the sand. As he watched, the mare struggled to drag her rear legs beneath her and strained forward, then back, grueling work to rise on her forelegs. In utter shock he stood frozen, staring down the sharp-cut bank at the horse, unable to speak as the tears welled up in his eyes and streaked the mud on his cheeks as they tumbled into his sand-caked beard and mustache.
How she had survived … hell—how he had survived! Erupting into action, he heaved himself off the grassy bank to the muddy sand where she fought to stand on the uneven, soggy ground. Titus snatched hold of the lead rope, tugging on it, calling out to her, offering what encouragement he could—then he burst back along her side to heave against the last of the two packs that had to be weighing her down.
Wearily she got the hind legs under her and stood, shuddered in sheer fatigue, then obediently plodded up the bank, leaving Bass behind to stand in wonder at her.
To that moment he had considered her nothing more than an aging plodder—a good and gentle horse for children to ride, perhaps for nothing more strenuous than a slow carriage through the countryside surrounding St. Louis. But now he marveled at her strength and resolve, how she turned slowly at the top of the bank to look back at him there with the Platte River lapping at his ankles, mud splattered from his toes to his armpits.
There she shuddered again and tossed her head from side to side, flinging muddy phlegm from her nostrils and shaking gritty water from her coat and the one pack clinging to her back that made her stand off balance.
As soon as he joined the mare on the sunny bank, Bass looped an arm over her neck, patting the great, graceful animal he had given up for lost beneath her burden as the river seized them all.
“You s’pose we lost the Injun pony?” he whispered near the mare’s ear.
Then he sighed and turned away slightly, the pain of it all threatening to overwhelm him. “Maybeso we ought’n go have ourselves a look to be certain.”
Wearily he shifted the one pack so that it sat more squarely atop her broad back, then took up the lead rope as she turned about to plod back downstream behind Bass.
After something on the order of two miles he found the carcass. The Indian pony lay snagged in a quiet pool the Platte had formed near its northern bank after the spring runoff had laid up a tangled dam of drift timber and snags. After tying off the mare, Titus plunged into the shallow water, coming to a halt by the pony’s head—still hopeful that the pony would somehow be alive, just as he had found the mare. Slowly he dragged the head around so he could look into its eyes. And lost all hope when he found them already glazing in death.
Crying out with a low sob now that the horse’s death was real, vivid, and immediate, Bass carefully slid from beneath the pony’s muzzle and dragged his muddy legs under him. At the animal’s side he struggled with the twisted, mud-caked cinch in frustration until he finally freed the strap. After several attempts Titus finally succeeded in tugging the saddle from the dead horse’s back. Followed by the heavy, soggy blanket, he dragged both up the bank and flung down in utter exhaustion.
As if she somehow understood the fate of the pony, the mare tossed her head, then inched closer to lower her nose, sniffing at the saddle. She snorted and turned away, returning to browse among the leafy brush.
Again he heaved the wet saddle and blanket, dropping them farther up the bank near his rifle, then collapsed himself to the damp grass in the bright midday light. He sat there for a long time, barely able to move until he realized his skin was beginning to burn.
With agonizing slowness he went to the mare and found only his shirt had survived the tug and pull of the river. No leather britches nor his boots. In exasperation he yanked loose the ropes and let the last heavy pack drop to the ground, where he fell upon it—tearing it apart until he found his old pair of wool britches and three pair of Isaac Washburn’s moccasins.
Then he remembered—the dust. The Pawnee close at hand. Scrambling through the packs, he found the tin of powder kept dry in the river crossing. In another pouch he found Washburn’s pair of old pistols. Tearing rags from his patching material, Bass hurriedly began pulling the loads in his heavy weapons: dragging out the heavy lead balls with sheer muscle and a rifleman’s screw he set in the end of his ramrod, replacing powder, too, after carefully drying the pans and reoiling the barrels.
He was surprised to find that little effort sapped a lot of what he had left for strength. So he sat there a lon
g time with the rifle and pistols at hand, listening for sounds of approaching enemy, staring at the muddy river that had stolen so much from him—yet in the end that river had spat out both him and the packmare. Was he to be angry … or grateful?
Remembering those memories of drowning. Sensing the same tug of warring feelings for the man who had fathered him, pulled him from the Ohio. Resentful of both Thaddeus and the Platte. Yet finding himself so grateful that in the end both had spat him free to carry on as he alone chose to carry on.
It was sometime later as the sun slipped out of midsky when he became aware of the swooping, noisy flock of birds once more. Perhaps they had always been there at the corner of his vision and he just did not pay heed and notice them. Was it their distant squawking cries, or the great ripples they made upon the aching blue overhead, or even the shadows they made of themselves winging back and forth across the land beyond those first hills?
Whatever it was, he watched now—aware that time had slipped past him as he sat regarding the river like time itself: there, then suddenly here at hand right before him, but gone immediately.
“C’mere, girl,” he called out as he wearily rose to his feet.
Dragging up the saddle blanket, he wrung it out best he could, kneeling to knead what water he could from it before flinging it atop the mare’s packsaddle. With a lot of effort he redistributed what he had left into two small packs and lashed them to the horse’s back. Finally Bass nestled the old saddle down into the vee between the packs and untied the long lead rope from the willow.
“Let’s go.”
Through the tall grass he led the mare, their hooves and moccasins dragging against the thick, sturdy stalks. Heading upstream once more. This time on the north bank, angling a bit into the first line of hills—from time to time adjusting his course as he kept himself between the Platte and a line where he would intersect those flocks of tiny black birds.
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