“We gonna take what we can of ’em with us afore they cut us down, Silas?” Billy asked in a harsh whisper.
“Just hold your water,” Cooper cautioned, suspicion in his voice. “Don’t unnerstan’t why they coming in so slow—”
“Cooper’s right, Billy,” Scratch confided, the short hairs at the back of his neck bristling. “Just don’t let ’em get in here too close.”
At times like these a man remembered the lessons in life learned the hard way—clear as rinsed crystal. And right at this moment Titus recalled the way the Chickasaws glided up silently on the black-and-silver Mississippi, then rushed Ebenezer Zane’s boatmen out of the night … recalled how the Arapaho laid waiting in their ambush for the Ute hunting party last winter—then sprang like a cat coiled for the attack.
Bass continued, “But it do seem a mite contrary, don’t it, fellas? If’n this bunch wanted our hair here and now—likely they’d come at us on the run.”
As it turned out, the horsemen brought their wide-eyed ponies to a halt at a respectful distance, completely circling the trappers. Turning slowly, Bass looked each one over quickly. A handsome outfit they were, fine of form and every one decked out in their feathers and teeth, hair tied up atop their heads with stuffed birds and scalp locks fluttering from coats, robes, and shields. A few of them talked among themselves quietly, but for the most part, the ponies made the only noise, restless and restive as they snorted in the cold, pawing at the hard ground beneath the thin skiff of new snow.
“By doggee!” Hooks exclaimed only so loud. “Them ponies of their’n don’t like our smell.”
“Come to think of it,” Tuttle agreed, “I don’t think any white person with a good nose would like your smell, Billy.”
“Hush your yaps!” Cooper snarled as one of the horsemen inched out from the others in the circle. He began to make sign with his hands. “By damn, I think we might be able to talk to these here boys after all.”
Without reservation he suddenly handed his rifle back to Tuttle and quickly began to make sign.
The warrior smiled, then replied in kind, his hands fluttering before him as he nodded in the closest thing to friendliness Bass had seen since the hospitable Shoshone at last summer’s rendezvous.
“’Pears to be an agreeable sort,” Bud commented.
“Don’t seem so bad a bunch, after all, do they?” Hooks added.
Cocking his head around to tell them over his shoulder, Cooper said, “This here’s a bunch of Crow.”
“By damn, we run onto the Crow ’stead of Blackfoot!” Tuttle cheered with genuine relief.
Hooks slapped Titus on the back. “Crow got ’em some purty squaws, so the downriver talk says. Mighty purty squaws.” Then he bent his head close, his lips almost touching Bass’s ear. “Maybeso we can talk Cooper into winterin’ up with these here Crow and their womens. Word on river says these bang-tails make the best robe-warmers!”
Bass grumbled, “Maybeso you’d better wait to see what these here bucks have in mind for us afore you up and decide you’re gonna spread some Crow squaw’s legs for the winter here.”
With a snort Billy rocked back on his heels and said, “You grown particular of a sudden, Scratch? Gone and got picky about where you poke your wiping stick?”
“Hush, Billy!” Tuttle warned while Cooper went on talking in sign.
With some word from their leader, half of the warriors slowly turned their ponies and formed up loosely to move off down the slope toward the valley and that village nestled among the cottonwoods along the river.
“All I know is that running onto Injuns means we found us some brownskin sluts,” Billy hissed with a grin on his thick lips. “An’ I ain’t never met me a brownskin slut what didn’t kick her legs wide for Billy-boy here when I showed her a handful of my purty red beads or a little strip of ribbon!”
“Maybeso ol’ Silas got lucky for y’ boys again!” Cooper crowed as he turned and joyously slapped Hooks on the shoulder. “Leave it to me to find a warm lodge, and a warm honey-pot for our stingers, ever’ time!”
As the remainder of the horsemen urged their ponies closer to the white men, Tuttle whispered, “What they figger to do with us, Silas?”
Cooper smiled in that long black beard of his that tossed in the rising wind, slapping both hands down on the tops of Bud’s shoulders. “Ease your hammer down, son. These here Crow bucks just gave us the invite to come on down for dinner with their big chiefs.”
Billy echoed, “Big chiefs?”
Taking his rifle back from Tuttle, Cooper said, “From the sign talk I just got, looks like they knowed we was coming after our horses for the last two days.”
Bud asked, “An’ if we didn’t come after the damned horses?”
Grabbing Turtle’s elbow to urge them all down the snowy slope, Silas said, “Then they’d knowed we had us yaller stripes painted down our backs an’ was no better’n women.”
As the afternoon light deepened the hues of everything from clouds, to cedar, to the surface of the creek itself in that hour before the sunset, the Crow warriors escorted the white men into their noisy village. Not all that different from making their ride into the Ute village last winter, to Scratch’s way of thinking. Except one thing—these Crow sure were a tall people. Men and women both seemed taller than the Shoshone, and the Ute he had come to know in Park Kyack. Too, the more he looked at not just the menfolk, but the children and the Crows’ slant-eyed womankind, the more Titus felt these were as fair-skinned and handsome a people as rumors and campfire palaver had boasted they were.
Cooper turned over the two animals to a pair of young, smiling boys who appeared to take their grown-up responsibilities most seriously as they barked at the children to stay back from a wary Hannah and the restless saddle horse. And with that the trappers were shown into a warm lodge where waited at least ten men as old as Cooper himself.
That first evening of ceremonial smoking and eating boiled meat dragged on and on as speeches were made and exploits recounted by every warrior in attendance before he began his turn at haranguing the rest. And sometime after the first winter moon had fallen in the west, the white men were told that they would have to wait until morning for an answer to what would be done about their stolen horses.
When the next morning finally became afternoon, the trappers were told they would have an answer the following day. But it wasn’t until four days later that Cooper and the others were called before the Crow council, after impatiently cooling their heels where they were allowed to camp in a grove of cottonwood at the edge of the village circle.
“Seems they figger they got the right to ask us to pay for the beaver we’re taking from their criks,” Cooper explained what he had been told in the stillness of that council lodge. “They took our stock to pay for that beaver they say we’re stealing.”
“I don’t figger they’re asking for all that much,” Bass said.
For a moment Silas glowered at Titus, then finally asked, “What y’ think, Billy?”
“You tell me, Silas. Think we ought’n give ’em any of our beaver?”
Cooper looked at Tuttle. “If’n we don’t—these thievin’ bastards said they’d stretch us out over a fire an’ let their womens do their worst to us.”
“That … that ain’t ’sactly what they said, Silas,” Bass corrected.
“Oh?” Cooper demanded, smiling the best he could for the sake of the Crow men, his marblelike eyes nonetheless glaring holes in Bass.
“From what I saw ’em sign to you,” Titus explained, “they give us a choice.”
Pursing his lips in seething anger, Silas crossed his arms and said, “So now y’ figger y’ read sign language good enough to know what the hell these ol’ bucks said to me? S’pose y’ tell us all ’bout it, y’ boneheaded nigger.”
Not only were the eyes of the trappers on him now, but the black-cherry eyes of every one of the Crow elders and counselors were as well, clearly sensing the tension among the white m
en.
“From what I make of it,” Scratch started tentatively, then swallowed hard, “looks to be we got us one of two ways to go at this. We can give ’em something in trade for the beaver we been taking out’n the streams in their country, or …”
“Or?” Tuttle squeaked.
“Or they throw us right on out the way they found us—maybe lucky to get our mule and horse back.”
Hooks twisted to look at Cooper. “That true what Scratch said? We give ’em something to trade or they turn us out?”
Cooper nodded, his brow furrowed, anger smoldering at Bass, every bit as plain as sun on his face.
“But they’ll let us go?” Tuttle said. “Just let us ride on out—if’n we give ’em some plunder?”
“That’s the way I read the sign, boys,” Silas replied.
Then Bass declared, “Looks to me like we gotta figger out just how good it might turn out to be—us trapping here in Crow country.”
“What you think of us hanging back in this country, Silas?” Billy asked.
For a moment Cooper was silent; then with a smile he turned to Bass. “Let’s ask Scratch what he thinks we ought’n do.”
“I say we give ’em presents,” Titus was quick to answer. “Never know when it might turn out good to have us friends like these up here close to Blackfoot country, don’t you think?”
“Never thought of that,” Tuttle mused.
“What it cost us?” Hooks asked.
“Hardly nothing. A couple of horses and a blanket here, maybe a few beads or tin cup there,” Titus responded.
“That all they asking, Silas?” Hooks inquired, long ago conditioned to believe in Cooper, still doubtful of what Bass was telling them.
“By damn, Billy—if Scratch ain’t picked up enough sign to know fat cow from poor bull!” Cooper exclaimed with grudging admiration. “S’pose y’ go ahead on and tell us what else these ol’ bucks said ’bout keeping all our plunder for theyselves.”
With a jerk Tuttle twisted near fully around at that. “They gonna rob us of ever’thing?”
Cooper winked faintly, saying, “Y’ wanna tell ’em, Scratch? Or y’ want me to?”
“I s’pose if you’re asking me to tell Billy and Bud the bad news,” Bass began, then sighed. “These here Crow say we can walk on outta here just the way we walked in … ’cept we have to leave Hannah and the horse with the rest they took from us.”
“Or?” Cooper prodded, looking all the more smug.
“Or the Crow say we can pay ’em for their beaver—which means we can keep ever’thing what’s ours, and …”
Exasperated, Tuttle whined, “And?”
“And,” Bass paused, winking at Cooper, “we been invited to stay on till spring.”
The River Crow moved four times that winter, migrating each time to another traditional camping spot in another sheltered valley where wood and water were available, where the wind by and large kept large patches of the autumn-dried meadow grasses blown clear of snow. Every few weeks when the firewood became scarce and the last of the grass was cropped down, when the game grew harder to scare up and the campsites began to reek with human offal and that stench of an abundance of gut-piles, Big Hair’s River Crow set off behind one warrior band or another chosen by the elders to have the honor of selecting the valley where their brown and blackened lodges would next be raised.
Not only were they a handsome people, but the Crow turned out to be less haughty and arrogant than Titus had taken them to be at first. Whereas the Ute had welcomed the white men immediately, Big Hair’s band were a little slower to accept their winter visitors. But once they had warmed up to the trappers, the Crow turned out to be warm and generous hosts. As time went on, in fact, Titus discovered them not only to have a keen sense of humor—but they enjoyed playing practical jokes on one another … and on their guests.
“Silas!” Billy Hooks was bellowing as he came tearing out of the lodge where he had been taken by a clan elder, near naked.
To the four white men, it seemed like nothing new—just what had been the Crow’s practice all winter long: one man or another would present a wife or daughter to one of the trappers for a few nights, usually no longer than a phase or the moon. This day the trappers had been seated in the afternoon sun around a fire with more than a dozen warriors, smoking, talking in sign, practicing either their pidgin English or their stunted knowledge of Crow, when a clan elder came up to lead Billy off to a nearby lodge. While Billy frequently turned and winked, rubbing his crotch a time or two in lewd anticipation, the others watched.
And when the lodge door went down and all grew quiet, the men at the fire went back to their easy chatter and midwinter socializing. Suddenly Hooks burst from the lodge completely naked but for the buckskin shirt he desperately fought to clutch around his midsection as he stumbled and fell on the slick ground, clawed his way to his feet again, and raced for the fire, screeching.
“Dammit, Silas!”
As Cooper and Tuttle shot to their feet, Bass instead glanced at some of the brown faces gathered at that fire ring. Strange, he thought, that the dark eyes showed no surprise at this turn of events, no alarm.
“Don’t y’ want that squaw they give y’?” Silas demanded as the sputtering Billy approached, shuddering like an aspen leaf in autumn. Gazing over Hooks’s shoulder, Cooper and the others watched the woman emerge from the lodge, a blanket wrapped around what was clearly an otherwise naked body.
“H-her?” Billy squeaked, sliding to a stop on the slushy snow right in front of the giant trapper.
“For balls’ sake, Billy! She’s a looker,” Tuttle agreed, nodding.
“Damn now, Billy,” Cooper said, grasping Hooks’s shoulder with one big hand, “if’n y’ don’t want the slut—I’ll rut with her for a few days my own self.”
As the others appraised the squaw, Bass was again glancing in turn at the faces of the Crow men. By now the eyes were crinkling, and sly grins were beginning to crack the masks of indifference. A few even held hands over their mouths to stifle laughter, and for the first time Titus noticed the women gathering here and there in knots between the lodges, having halted their work at hides or child care to whisper and watch.
Hooks shook his head, eyes as big around as conchos, as he sputtered, “B-but … she ain’t a—”
Silas whirled Billy around and pushed him back toward the blanket-wrapped squaw. “G’won now and climb on that slut’s hump, Billy boy!” he roared. “Or I’ll do it for y’!”
“Silas?” Hooks pleaded, his feet locked in place, skidding across the snow as the insistent Cooper pushed him along.
“Listen—y’ bonehead idjit. Y’ don’t poke your stinger in ’er—I sure as hell gonna do it my own self!”
“B-but, Silas … she don’t—”
“Come to think of it,” Cooper suddenly interrupted, shoving his way past Hooks as he took off in that long-legged, lumbering gait of his, headed for the woman. “She’s a good-lookin’ wench, ain’t she? Y’ done wasted your bet, Billy. Think I’ll dip some honey out o’ her pot first off afore y’ get her all bumfoozled.”
Scratch had to agree—the woman was real pleasant looking: nice featured with a gentle nose and almond-shaped eyes, her glossy hair braided, one long twist spilling over a smooth-skinned bare shoulder. But the way these Crow fellers were acting …
From a standing start Hooks burst into a blur, shooting past Cooper to reach the woman just a heartbeat before Silas came to an abrupt stop before them both.
“Told y’, Billy: had y’ your chance’t. Now step ’side and let the booshway wet his whang in this’un first.”
“Ain’t … she ain’t what you think, Silas!”
When Cooper gave Hooks a playful shove aside and took him another step toward the woman, Billy leaped right back, saying frantically, “Silas—you cain’t … you ain’t gonna—”
It was then Cooper took the woman by the one bare arm she had exposed, clamping the blanket to her body, and
turned the squaw back toward the lodge—his eyes clearly feasting on that bare shoulder.
“Tried to tell you, Silas!”
And that’s when Billy did the unthinkable. He grabbed hold of the woman’s blanket and began tugging. Immediately she wheeled away from Cooper and began pulling back on the blanket. Silas lunged for them both—seizing hold of Billy’s wrist.
“Leave her the hell be!” Cooper roared, shoving Hooks backward with a mighty heave. “Slut’s mine now!”
But as Hooks fell, the woman’s blanket came loose—and all hell came loose with it.
Billy sprawled in a heap on the snow. Cooper whirled, visibly shuddered—then stood frozen, staring openmouthed at the naked squaw. Tuttle was already on his feet, but now he too stood rooted to the spot, unable to comprehend what had just occurred.
Slowly, at first, the Crow men began to laugh—almost as one, as if on cue. Behind and all around their men, the women giggled too. Then every Crow in that camp seemed to be laughing, so hard that a mighty din it made that winter afternoon beneath the bare branches of the cottonwood.
For a moment all Cooper could do was point down at the figure naked before him, his arm trembling. Then he hobbled a halting step back, and a second, his mouth moving up and down. Lunging for Hooks, he pulled his naked friend off the ground as Billy fought to keep himself covered from all the Crow eyes.
Seething, Silas roared, “Why—y’ think this is some good laugh on me, don’t y’, Billy?”
As Cooper shook him slowly back and forth, they both stumbled back another step. Hooks tried to explain, “I-I didn’t know when she took me in!”
As Cooper and Hooks stumbled out of the way, Bass clearly saw what the Crow had been smiling about. The moment Silas moved back, Billy in tow, Titus saw it wasn’t a beautiful young woman at all. Instead, it was a very pretty, thin-boned young man, vainly trying to wrench his blanket back from Billy … and as he did, his very apparent male appendage wagged in the cold winter air.
“She’s a … a man!” Tuttle gushed.
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