“They’ll have that country all to themselves now that Sublette and Campbell are pulling out,” Thornbrugh continued. “In turn, American Fur won’t give Sublette’s company any competition for a year down here in these central and southern mountains.”
Bass wagged his head as if it was incomprehensible to him. “They made ’em a truce? Dividing up the beaver country a’tween ’em … and here it was not so long ago the free men were hoping McKenzie would come on down here from his American Fur post to give Sublette some competition—his prices were so goddamned high!”
“Still are,” Jarrell replied. “And what he offers for fur is terribly low.”
“So Sublette’s got this cat skinned two ways of Sunday, don’t he?” Bass observed.
McKay explained, “McLoughlin sent us here to sell our goods at prices lower than what any American trader sells for, and to buy beaver at a price higher than Americans would pay.”
Bass looked around him a moment. “Don’t see no crowd lining up to sell you their beaver, fellas.”
Scratching at his cheek, the bearded Thornbrugh said, “Appears your Americans will trade with Sublette, no matter how black-hearted his business ethics.”
“You gotta dance the way Sublette dances: ain’t you offered them trappers any of your whiskey?” Bass inquired.
McKay exploded in laughter. “We didn’t bring any liquor! The Doctor’s an honorable man, so he wouldn’t hear of any whiskey trade.”
“Which puts us at a decided disadvantage,” Thornbrugh stated. “Sublette opened his packs and his whiskey kegs three days before Wyeth ever came in. Which meant that Rocky Mountain Fur was dead and buried by the time that Yank showed up to sell them his goods—”
“Rocky Mountain Fur’s … d-dead?” Bass sputtered.
“Sublette bought them out, one at a time I hear,” Jarrell said. “There were five partners, but by the time Sublette got through offering them this or offering them that for their shares, only two of them decided to stay on with Sublette.”
“Which ones?” Bass inquired.
“Thomas Fitzpatrick is one,” McKay answered. “Don’t know who the other one is.”
“Rocky Mountain Fur, dead,” Bass repeated, staring at the trampled grass. “Hard for that to make sense to me.”
“So where’s your future lie, Titus Bass?” Jarrell asked. “You want to bring your pelts over here and trade with Hudson’s Bay?”
The American regarded Thornbrugh a long and thoughtful moment, then admitted, “I figure I owe first crack to the Americans.”
McKay roared, “You’re gonna give in to Sublette’s temptations too?”
“No.” Bass wagged his head. “Feel I ought’n see what Wyeth’s got to offer a man like me what’s come in late too, after Sublette’s bamboozled all the rest into backing out on their word. What the Yankee can’t trade for, I’ll be over to see if you can help me out, fellas.”
Thornbrugh slapped his hand down on Bass’s thigh. “Good man, Titus Bass. Perhaps there is a bit of honor left in a few of you Americans after all.”
“We still got lots of honor, Jarrell,” Titus snapped. “A man ain’t nothing without his honor. Pulling something so underhanded like that goddamned Sublette done makes all us Americans look bad.”
By the time Scratch had pushed more than three miles downstream that afternoon, what had been a faint, far-off hodgepodge of sounds became the familiar revelry of rendezvous as he drew closer.
Down from the bluffs lining both sides of the valley wound small groups of hunters leading pack animals, carcasses of deer, antelope, and elk lashed securely athwart their sturdy backs. In the bottoms men competed with warriors from the visiting Nez Perce and Flathead camps in horse races, handsome fleet geldings as the champion’s prize. Even greater numbers of the trappers stripped down to no more than breechclout and moccasins as they pitted themselves against one another in drunken footraces. Cheered on by foggy-headed companions, the finish line judged by the unsteadiest among them, most of the contests erupted into a drunken brawl as knots of men rolled about in the tall grass.
Behind it all arose the periodic boom of rifle fire echoing from the meandering hemline of bluffs where others shot at the mark for a treasured prize or another cup of Sublette’s whiskey. Thin, ghostly wisps of gun smoke intertwined to trail lazily on the breezeless air that hot afternoon, its whitish gray captured among the branches of leafy Cottonwood and willow. From creekside and meadow alike came the constant din of whoops and hurrahs, loud voices raised in cheer, mingling with a few strident calls made in heat and anger as men fell to gouging eyes and kneeing groins, urged on by their backers.
More than six hundred white men—company and free—languished and played, celebrating their survival, toasting their having met the challenge for another year even though the greater number of them hadn’t trapped near enough to pay off the entirety of last year’s debt, much less be free to purchase everything needed for the coming season without hanging oneself on the company’s hook. Six hundred, not as many as last year for sure, but still more than had gathered for that high-water mark in Pierre’s Hole two summers ago.
Horses grazed, while some took a dusty roll, freed now for long days when they would not suffer the heavy burdens of the fur trade. A time for saddle sores, cinch ulcers, and herd bites to heal before making that climb to the autumn high country.
Off in the distance through the afternoon’s haze he could make out the tops of the lodgepole swirls, faint fingers of wood smoke still rising from fires tended by the squaws in that camp. Of a sudden he wondered if that were the Flathead village, and if chance dictated it might be the people Looks Far Woman left when she chose to find Josiah, the father of her child. Perhaps he would see before rendezvous played itself out, if only to tell her kin she was safer in that Mexican town on the border of Comanche country than she was living at the edge of the Blackfoot domain.
Then again, that band might well be Nez Perce. A man couldn’t really tell from this distance. Not with all the dust raised by the teeming crowds in the Rocky Mountain Fur camp he was about to enter, a veritable town with its streets laid out among the shady trees, the grass trampled by hundreds of feet as groups came and went of some serious purpose.
“Got furs to trade with Sublette, do ye?”
Bass reined up, staring down at the face of an old companion.
“Elbridge?”
“Get down here and shake my paw, Titus Bass.”
Behind Gray the others streamed, a handful in all as Scratch leaped to the ground, dropping Samantha’s lead rope. Breathless when he finished hugging these dear old friends, done pounding backs and withstanding the blows of doubled fists hurled his way, he stood back and stared at the semicircle of their faces.
Dragging a hand beneath the dribble at the end of his nose, he sighed, “You ugly boys sure make a sight for these ol’ eyes.”
“So where’s that pretty wife of your’n?” Rufus Graham asked, his auburn hair just hinting at turning gray. He was missing those four front teeth, both top and bottom. “The gal you had roped to you last ronnyvoo finally get smart and run off with a good-looking man?”
“Naw,” Titus said with a big grin. “She’s back yonder to our camp, upstream. We had us a girl-child.”
“Merciful heavens! A girl?” Caleb Wood echoed.
“Purty as her mother,” Bass declared.
“God bless!” exclaimed Solomon Fish, rubbing the long ringlets of his blond beard. “Pray God saw to it the little child didn’t take after her homely pap!”
Bass suddenly looped an arm around Solomon’s neck and playfully rubbed the top of his mangy blond hair with a handful of knuckles before allowing the struggling man to go free.
“Where’s Wyeth?” Bass asked. “I heard tell when we come in yestiddy that the Yank was already in from the East.”
None of them answered at first, until the stocky Isaac Simms said, “He’s yonder. More’n a couple miles on down the creek. On pas
t them Nepercy what’s camped close to Sublette’s tents.”
“That’s Sublette off yonder, eh?”
Caleb nodded. “He’s doing a handsome business.”
Of a sudden it struck Titus. “Why you boys camped in here with Rocky Mountain Fur? You ain’t thro wed in with the company men, have you?”
Wood toed the grass a moment before answering. “It ain’t been so good for us since losing … J-jack,” he said quietly.
Bass looked around at the others, most of whom did not meet his gaze. “Been two summers now, ain’t it, boys?”
Graham swallowed and answered, “Y-yeah. Two year, Scratch—since them god-blamed Blackfoot got him in the Pierre’s Hole fight.”
“But when I saw you fellers last summer on the Green, seemed you’d done fair for that first year ’thout Jack Hatcher in the lead,” Titus declared.
“The more we talked about it last ronnyvoo,” Elbridge explained, “the more we figured we ought’n try some new country up north when we pulled away from ronnyvoo.”
Solemnly, Isaac said, “But a man’d be stupid to ride north ’thout a brigade round him.”
“So you boys throwed in with one of the outfits, eh?” Bass inquired.
“Bridger’s, it were,” Caleb volunteered. “Fitzpatrick was going to the Powder, so we signed on with Bridger.”
Titus could see it written on their faces—how the toll of losing their leader had marked every man jack of them. No matter how they had spouted and spumed in protest at Mad Jack Hatcher, not a one of them was leader enough to take the reins and make an outfit of them once again. They were good men, hard-cased and veterans all. But they were followers still. No man could fault them for realizing that before every last one of them lost his hair.
“It’s a good thing,” Scratch told them, “for the easy beavers been took already. To go where the beaver still plays, a man needs to go in goodly numbers. Wise you boys chose to throw in with Bridger’s brigade.”
And he watched how his words visibly struck each one, bringing relief and smiles to eyes and faces.
“Where’s that Josiah, the young’un you brung with you to the Pierre’s Hole fight?” Simms asked.
“He was with you last year on the Green,” Rufus said.
Bass sucked down some wind. “Left him in Taos with his wife and boy, ’long with some trade goods to set up shop.”
Caleb eyed him. “You figger to be a trader now?”
With a wag of his head Titus answered, “Just Josiah. He’d tempted Lady Fate’s fickle hand enough while we rode together. Time was for me to give him his leave.”
Scratching the beginnings of his potbelly, Elbridge asked, “Who you riding with come autumn?”
“On my own hook, boys.”
“By jam—just you and the woman?” Isaac inquired.
“And our girl.”
“You ought’n throw in with us, Scratch,” Caleb observed.
“That’s right,” Gray said. “Bridger knows you. He ain’t got nothing ’gainst a man packing a squaw along.”
With a shake of his head, Titus quieted their suggestions. “Time’s come for me to go it alone. Moseying with a brigade’s gonna be the best for most fellas. But there’s hard-assed pricknoses like me what’re better off on their lonesome. Thanks for the asking. If I was to lay down my traps with any bunch, it’d be you boys … and only you boys.”
Solomon asked, “Got time for some whiskey?”
Titus looked at the five slowly, his eyes narrowing. “You figger this here nigger got stupid in the last year? Course I got time for some whiskey and some stories. Then I ought’n be on my way to find Wyeth.”
“But Billy Sublette’s got his trade tents just past the bend in the creek,” Caleb said. “Hell, he’s so close I could throw a rock and likely hit one of his whiskey kegs!”
“No thanks,” Bass said as he turned around and took up both the reins to the horse and Samantha’s lead rope. “From what I heard ’bout the underhanded jigger-pokey Sublette pulled on Wyeth—I don’t care to have nothing more to do with Billy Sublette.”
“So I s’pose you’ve heard there ain’t no more Rocky Mountain Fur?” Isaac asked.
“But we’re still working for Bridger’s company,” Rufus explained.
“From the sounds of things,” Bass said, “Fitzpatrick and Bridger can call their company what they want … but Billy Sublette still owns ’em and calls their tune.”
Elbridge suddenly placed the flat of his hand against Bass’s chest to bring Scratch to a halt. “Then I take it you’re a nigger what won’t drink none of Billy Sublette’s whiskey.”
Titus thought on it a moment, careful that his face remained gravely pensive. “Is Sublette’s whiskey as good an’ powerful as it ever was?”
“Damn right it is!” Caleb roared.
“Then I ain’t above accepting a free drink of that low-down thieving Sublette’s whiskey,” Bass declared boldly, “not when I get me the chance to drink that whiskey with the likes of you boys!”
* BorderLords
3
As the sun had eased down on rendezvous that day of revel and reunion, Bass had crawled atop the bare back of the buffalo-runner, looped Samantha’s lead rope around his hand, and groggily pointed them north. It was twilight before he reached their tiny camp where Waits-by-the-Water had a fire going and thick slabs of antelope tenderloin sizzling in his old iron skillet.
“You find the trader you went in search of?”
“No,” he said to her voice at his back as he loosened knots securing those packs he had tied to the back of the mule. Crow words came hard with his thick, swollen tongue that wasn’t near as nimble as it had been when he left camp hours ago, so he settled for English. “Ran onto some old friends.”
She stepped up to him, their daughter straddling one of Waits’s hips, clinging like a possum kit to her mother. For a moment she only stared at her husband’s eyes, then leaned in close, inches from his face, and sniffed.
Bass jerked his head back. “What you doing?”
With a tinkle of laughter Waits replied, “You’ve been drinking the white man’s bi’li’ka’wii’taa’le, the real bad water!”
“Just because you don’t like whiskey don’t mean I cain’t enjoy having some ever’ now and then!” he protested slowly, struggling to keep his tongue from getting as tangled as were the knots his fingers fought.
“Here,” she said, taking his hand and turning him, starting toward their fire. Waits convinced him to settle upon their blanket-and-robe bedding. “Take our daughter,” and she passed the infant down to him. “I’ll see to the animals.”
“Y-you’re a good woman,” he said to her back as she yanked free the first of the ropes and pulled off one of the beaver packs.
It was a few moments before he grew aware of his daughter’s chatter. There on his lap she played with her fingers, popped them into her mouth, licked them, then pulled them out and played with them again as she babbled constantly. Struck dumb, he listened with rapt attention, concentrating on the infant as she played and talked, talked and played, her skin turned the color of copper by the fire there at twilight.
Why had he never really listened to her until now? Was it the whiskey that had numbed most of his other senses, dulling them so that her chatter somehow pricked his attention? He laughed—and the baby stopped her babble, gazing up at him with widening eyes.
In English he said, “For weeks now I been wondering what we was gonna name you, little one.”
The moment he finished she gurgled happily again, which made him laugh once more, causing her in turn to stare at him in wonder.
“You and me can have us a talk, cain’t we?” he asked, bouncing her on a thigh. “I talk and laugh, just like you, pretty one. So you understand me. And you’re gonna grow up talking your pap’s tongue, ’long with your mama’s tongue too. Gonna talk happy in both!”
As soon as his voice drifted off, the infant set right in with her cheery babble.
“So when your mama gets mad at me and don’t wanna talk, or when she don’t wanna have nothing to do with speaking the white man’s tongue I’m trying to teach her—why, you and me can have us all the talk we want!”
“Talk?” Waits repeated the word in English as she stepped up, then knelt beside him on the blankets.
“Yes,” he replied in English, and slowly continued in his own language, “we’re gonna see which one of you learns my tongue first. Mama, or daughter.”
“You will teach her to talk the white man’s words the way you are teaching me?”
He nodded, feeling the fuzziness creep across his forehead there by the warmth of the fire. “I’m hoping she’ll want to talk to me when you’re angry at something I’ve done or said.”
“Do I hurt your feelings when I won’t talk to you?”
The girl reached out for her mother, so he settled the baby in Waits-by-the-Water’s lap. “I don’t like letting things go,” he confessed. “I want to get things settled quick. Get shed of those bad feelings soon as we can. Only way to do that is to talk.”
She brushed the babe’s short hair with a palm as she considered that. “Yes,” Waits agreed. “When you make me angry with you, I don’t want to hurt your feelings because I am so mad I don’t know what to say. Now I know that you want me to talk.”
“That’s the only way to … to …” But he lost track of what he had wanted to say.
“The white man’s real bad water made you forget, husband,” she said, then leaned in to kiss his hairy cheek.
“No, the whiskey just makes me stupid,” he admitted in English. “Better I sleep now.”
“Sleep,” she echoed the English word, and reached down to stuff a blanket under his head as he settled back onto the robes.
“Like I said, you’re a good woman,” Bass whispered in English as he closed his eyes.
“You … good man,” she said the words quietly, haltingly, in her husband’s tongue.
He smiled and sighed, and listened to the baby softly chatter as he sank into sweet oblivion.
Ride the Moon Down Page 4
