Buffalo Palace tb-2

by Terry C. Johnston

  Back near the fire he could see where they had bedded down, those grassy places near the fire more flattened than the rest of the bluestem and porcupine grass that was barely beginning to recover. Where the trio had laid out their bedding and blankets for the night—the grass was broken, discolored, and entirely crushed.

  From all the sign he could make out in the failing light as summer night surrounded him, Scratch reassured himself they had been there. At least they had come this far—and, like him, had discovered the post to be abandoned, burned, and fallen to ruins. If there had been at least the shell of a cabin left standing, then they likely would have pulled over then and there, spending the night within the shelter of the log stockade, he decided. But instead the three of them had seen no walls rising on that narrow thumb of high ground, and therefore had no reason to stop where they said they would leave him word of their passing.

  He stood, anxious, looking this way and that.

  So why wouldn’t they leave him some sign—a scrap of old canvas with their marks on it—hanging here? If not at the post site, then why not here? Had they forgotten? he wondered. Or, as he slid closer to fearing, was it just a case of not giving a damn about what they had promised him?

  And if they cared so little about the promise of leaving him a message at the mouth of the Bighorn River … then … then could the three have come to care nothing about the other promises made him?

  Finally he wagged his head, steadfastly refusing again to take this as evidence of the worst. Better to keep on believing the best. Billy was a simpleminded man, but good enough at heart. And Tuttle was smarter than Hooks, so he’d remember what they’d promised Titus Bass. So it really didn’t matter what he might fear at the core of him about Silas Cooper … because Scratch believed that come hell or high water, in the end Cooper would do exactly as he had promised: trade their furs and return for another winter season in the mountains, and another after that, and another after …

  Scratch believed in that strongly because of what he knew he meant to Silas Cooper. There was no two ways of Sunday about it: Titus Bass was the best trapper of the four of them. And as long as Silas was getting his healthy cut of Scratch’s catch, then Cooper would do everything to protect his best trapper.

  Wasn’t no way in hell Silas would break his bond with Bass, not by a long chalk!

  Sighing, Scratch looked about again as the light faded. He decided he would sleep here and turned back to the saddle horse and Hannah. After securing them for the night near his bed, Titus stretched out and gazed up at the black dome flecked with a wide trail of dusty stars. Wondering if the three of them were looking up at much the same sky right then too.

  At least they’d come this far. So chances were good they’d make it from here on down to that Mandan post just above the mouth of the Knife River. Silas, Bud, and Billy had come this far, he reminded himself … and that was good enough to convince Scratch that they would likely make it the rest of the way. Without accident, without attack.

  Far, far better was it for him to believe in that—than to go on nursing doubt any longer. Better to hang his hope on the fact they’d been right here, ate and camped and slept right here on this ground … better to hope than allow any misgivings to creep in and ambush him. Always better to trust in someone than to let doubt and uncertainty nibble away at the faith he wanted to have in the three.

  Best that he protect what kernel of loyalty remained than to allow something to fester inside him … no matter what.

  No matter how long it took.

  High summer was daily baking the central Rockies the way his mother had baked her double-sweetened corn bread in the Dutch oven in their river-rock fireplace, scooping hot coals onto the top of the cast-iron kettle.

  In the heat he tried now to remember the fragrance of that rising bread, the surface of the cornmeal turning golden. But Titus could not remember.

  Instead he rubbed his nose, finding it caked and crusted again with the dry dust of this open, unforgiving country far to the southwest of the low saddle* that took a man to the Pacific side of the great continental spine. The dust stived up with every hoof the horse set down. Dust from all those horses and mules behind him, all those hooves—and when the breeze stirred to temporarily cool the sweat glistening his skin, the breeze might just as soon blow that cloud of alkali dust in his direction.

  A far, far different country, this, far different from that up on the Yellowstone in the land of the Apsaalooke. More weeks than he cared to think about since he’d left the mouth of the Yellowstone behind and moved south up the Bighorn. Since there was no longer a Missouri Fur Company post, all this time he had been counting on the three joining up with him far to the south.

  That day after finding sign of their riverside camp, he had begun this journey south. Eager most of all to complete his side of the compact made with Silas Cooper and the others. Only way Titus knew for sure that their reunion would ever come to be was that he himself had to be there to meet up with the three when they rode in from Fort Vanderburgh on the Missouri. From there Cooper said he would bring them a little south of west. Unencumbered by all the weight of traps, baggage, camp gear, and what other truck four men required to survive one winter after another out here in the mountains, surely the three could make far better time hurrying toward their rendezvous south of Henry’s Fork and the Green River country east of the Uintah.

  Was no doubt in Scratch’s mind that the trio could travel far faster than he had been able to since he had last seen them floating off down the Yellowstone. Considering the number of horses and mules he had to ride herd on … well, while he might not have as far to ride, Bass grew more certain with every day that Silas Cooper’s bunch could likely cover twice the distance he could in every sunup-to-sundown ride. And that’s what kept him pushing on as fast as the animals, and the rugged, broken terrain, and all the terrible storms of early summer allowed him.

  The days drifted by as he scooted south along the winding path of the Bighorn, south farther still into the Wind River country and then the high breaks of the Popo Agie, where he crossed that high saddle as a hellish hailstorm battered him and the animals early one afternoon. The icy shards hurt so much, he was driven out of the saddle, dropping to the ground and dragging a thick wool blanket with him as he huddled beneath the belly of the tail-tucked saddle mount to sit out heaven’s attack on this treeless expanse of parched, high sagebrush desert. How all the horses whimpered and the mules snorted in their discomfort and pain until the bombardment moved on east and a cold rain fell. Eventually a band of blue and purple and dusty rose sky emerged along the western horizon, and the last of the storm was finally on its way over him.

  Like him, the horses and mules had shuddered and shivered, and reluctantly they moved out with him once more as he urged them in motion. The wind had come up soon after and made for a damp, cold camp that night until he got his fire started. Chilled to the marrow, Scratch clutched his coffee tin close beneath his hairy chin and consoled himself with the fact that he was getting all the nearer to the country where he would await the arrival of his partners.

  Partners.

  It had been the first time in more than two winters with the trio that he had ever thought of them as partners. At first they had been saviors—arriving as they did just when his last horse had died of black water. Then he had come to think of them as his mentors, teaching him not only trapping but the ways of the mountains and of the brown-skinned natives who likewise called this high country home. And finally he was forced to consider Silas Cooper as his master when Cooper first exacted his tribute for saving Bass’s life, for keeping him alive.

  What else would he call it when he had thrown in near everything he owned, certainly everything he had worked the better part of a year to acquire, handed over that fortune of his to join with theirs in that exciting, challenging endeavor of floating their furs downriver? What else would the four of them call themselves … but partners?

  As anxio
us as he was to rendezvous with them, Bass had figured he would reach the reunion site far ahead of schedule, so he had turned back a bit on the compass and headed south by east toward Park Kyack—fondly remembering that high mountain valley and the Ute band. Recalling the widow and the warmth of her blankets.

  But as much as he searched the familiar ground, there was no sign of the tribe, nor much evidence of what direction they had taken. On occasions as he worked his way through the valley, Bass crossed the trail of a hunting party, perhaps a raiding party—unshod horses of one and or another haunting this high country. The one old camp he came across showed him where the Ute had likely moved out of the valley, heading north by west to hunt both the buffalo and antelope they would not find here in Park Kyack.

  Staring down at the cold, blackened rings of those lodge fires, the remains of drying racks, the litter of camp life, he had grown lonely, so lonely again. It hurt every bit as much as when he watched the three float off down the river and around the far bend in the Yellowstone. The Ute had been here. But after hoping to find them … to find her … the loneliness inside made him want to disbelieve the Ute had been here at all, had crossed this ground—so close, yet no more.

  Then he realized he was sore in need of seeing another human face, hearing another human voice, watching a smile emerge and eyes twinkle when they looked back at him. As much as he cherished the solitude, loved the aloneness, and savored being beholden to no one but himself … Titus yearned terribly. Yearned for faces and voices and laughing eyes. Hungered for the mere touch of a hand in his, perhaps the arms of a friend around his shoulders, even the mouth of a woman pressed against his as he tasted her breath and felt himself stir to readiness.

  From time to time after reaching the beautiful valley, he stopped a day or so to lay his traps. But as well as he did, the pelts were poor compared to what a man could catch in-winter or early spring.

  “Beaver always come to bait in this here country,” he spoke out loud one night at his fire, surprised to hear the sound of his own voice. “Come to bait they do: just as sure as a man’d lay down his money on a St. Louie whore’s feather bed so’s to get hisself a proper forking.”

  It was pretty country, to be sure. No wonder the Ute felt so strong about it—were prepared to defend it the way the Crow defended their Absaraka.

  That was just the way he got to thinking a few weeks later after pushing up and out of Park Kyack, wondering if it weren’t the same with those tribes along the Upper Missouri. Would they defend their land and the river that ran through it from a trio of white men floating down to a distant trading post? If those lone men were heading on out of that tribe’s precious country, why wouldn’t the warriors just let the trio pass on by? Or would they realize that the mere sight of white men meant the possibility of plunder, not to mention the presence of guns and powder to be stolen? And Bass knew, in the marrow of him, that might well prove to be enough of a temptation to spell the trio’s doom.

  Dropping down out of the high country again, driving that herd of horses and mules north by west, constantly keeping his eyes moving along the far skyline, watching the distant ridges, staying to the long stretches of timber that bordered every stream and creek and riverbed so that he wouldn’t stand out with that cavvyyard he had stirring up a cloud of dust behind him. Then, at long last, he reached the banks of the Green as summer was growing all the hotter and the days had become their longest. For weeks upon weeks now he had counted upon laying his eyes on this river. For here was the place, and now was the time, the four would rejoin.

  He waited.

  The mosquitoes grew thick there in the valley of the Green as summer aged and the big bottle-green horseflies tormented the animals he was forced to move to new grass from time to time.

  And he waited some more.

  Scratch hunted, and watched the skyline for warriors. He rode out to the high ground northeast of where he maintained his lonely vigil and watched the skyline for Silas, Billy, and Bud.

  Still he waited.

  And each day he added a notch to a peeled wand of willow. So many days and notches now since he had watched the three of them float away—there were many such wands of willow stuffed down in his saddle pouch. More than he cared to count anymore. More than he cared to remind himself. Each time he did, the doubt crept back in.

  He had waited long past the time Silas had calculated they would reunite.

  Then he added notches he knew would put him past the time the traders’ rendezvous had come and gone at the south end of the Sweet Lake. With regret, and a growing anger, Titus tried to remember the faces of the merry Daniel Potts, mulatto dandy Jim Beckwith, young and randy Jim Bridger, and even crusty old Henry Fraeb. Faces he hadn’t seen in a year now, not since Willow Valley. Hard, tanned, wind-seamed faces and rough-edged voices brought easily to laughter with the tall tales he wouldn’t share now for at least another year.

  Unless he went, and now. Yes, perhaps some of the brigades might still be in that country close by the Sweet Lake. Wouldn’t be no trick at all to find where the hundred or more had camped and traded, drank and reveled together. Wouldn’t be no hard task to seeing how they had split up and moved out, what direction the brigades were headed. He might catch up, spend a few days among the company of one brigade or another. Just to have the sound of voices and laughter in his ears.

  After all … it was plain to see that Silas and Billy and Bud had been rubbed out. Somehow he had to accept that he was on his own hook once more.

  Perhaps they hadn’t made it all the way down the Yellowstone and then the Missouri to that trader’s post called Vanderburgh’s. Then again—they might well have made it there and traded all the furs, only to be rubbed out coming across all that country where the Arikara and Pawnee and Arapaho could jump a few white men hurrying back to the mountains. Leastways, that’s something Isaac Washburn had known of firsthand. The country where Scratch’s three friends were to cross was the same stretch of high plains where Ol’ Gut and Hugh Glass had barely escaped with their hide and their hair.

  As much as he stared into the small fire he built himself for company every night, as much as he watched the water flow by in the Green every day—the feeling inside him had grown no more comfortable, no more easy to accept until he was ready to let it go. To hell with the furs. There’d always be beaver in the mountains and high valleys. Besides, he still had his traps and other truck. By God, Titus thought, he was still in the business of trapping.

  So to hell with all that prime beaver he had dragged out of countless frozen streams, beaver stretched and scraped, beaver packed in hundredweight bales and finally lashed down on that crude raft that disappeared down the Yellowstone with Silas Cooper.

  Only thing that mattered was that he’d lost three friends. Lost the three men who had damn well saved his life.

  Down in his belly that eventual acceptance of it brought up the gorge that nearly choked him after all these years: remembering how he had lost Ebenezer Zane. A trusted friend, a mentor Titus had looked up to, a man who had taught Bass not just about the great rivers, but about life on the river—women and rum, song and friends.

  Then he remembered Isaac himself. How the graying trapper had done all that he could to keep Bass from liking him there at first, but come to love him Titus had. To trust Washburn enough to plan on following him west into the unknown. Then Gut was taken from him too. Gone as suddenly.

  After all these winters and summers healing over those two painful scars of loss, now he had to face the loss of three more. Silas, Billy, and Bud ripped from him.

  “The Big Muddy’s fair boiling with red niggers,” he told himself out loud more than once as he wrestled with his inner agony. “Likely it be that the three of ’em just bought into more’n they could barter for on that river’s track. Injuns got ’em up there—or Injuns got ’em coming back.”

  As much as a man might refuse to grapple with it, he had to accept that the three of them were gone. Dead. Rubbed
out.

  And the only way there was to get on with life was to get on … with people. Bass had to find one of those brigades. He had to be among others until this pain eased. It might take a few days. More likely it would take weeks, and Bass might just decide to throw in with Fitzpatrick’s bunch for the fall hunt, joining up for as long as the winter. He could trade off what he didn’t need in the way of all these horses to the company men for some coffee and sugar, anything he didn’t already have enough of back there among the packs. The brigade’s booshway might even have some liquor left. And rum or whiskey might just go a long way to helping numb a bit more of the pain.

  Titus was sure the only way that hurting would stop and he could venture back out on his own was to do one thing. If he was to survive inside, he knew he had to scare up some faces and voices and eyes crinkling in laughter.

  Knowing that the best chances for finding any of that healing lay over in that Sweet Lake country, Scratch eagerly set off before sunrise the next morning, unable to sleep after coming to his decision. All night he had brooded on it, concluding that his best chances of running onto a brigade moving out with the breakup of rendezvous lay in his striking out to the north. At least he knew there would always be one brigade moving northeast into the high mountain country to trap through the autumn. There might even be two brigades he could run across—since another was likely to march east a ways from the Sweet Lake country before pointing their noses directly north.

  Chances were better than good that he would run onto one such brigade somewhere to the north—or at least come across sign of their passing, and he could hurry along their backtrail until he caught up with them. That morning he put the Green at his back and struck out east, following the meandering path of a narrow river* that he knew would eventually lead him back toward the mountains and Park Kyack. Scratch felt a new chapter opening on the book of his life. Instead of plunging back into that high country to search for the Ute, this time he would strike out to the north upon reaching the foothills.