Wind Walker

by Terry C. Johnston

  She flung her arms tightly around his neck and whispered in his ear, “I will stay with you and Mother forever.”

  Titus felt his own eyes filling to overflowing as his tears began to spill atop his daughter’s head. “Yes, you will stay in our hearts for all time, Magpie. Forever, and for all time.”

  The sun was nearing midsky two days later when Bass was surprised to spot a small log hut topped with a sod-and-timber roof. A thin spiral of smoke whispered from the top of a crude rock chimney. At the opposite corner of the cabin stood a small corral constructed of lodgepole pine.

  He whistled up the dogs. Both Digger and Ghost came bounding up. He gave them a quick signal with his hand and they immediately heeled on his horse, tongues lolling, tails wagging … waiting.

  Whoever it was raised this cabin, he thought as he emerged from the cottonwood, they had invested a lot of time and sweat to drag lodgepole all the way here from the Wind Rivers.

  “Halloo, the house!” he sang.

  A shadowy figure moved across the open doorway, just touched by the edge of sunlight. At the same moment a brown-skinned face appeared very briefly at the lone, tiny window, open and without benefit of glass. Poor doin’s, Titus ruminated.

  “Titus? Titus Bass?” a voice cried out in English as the horseman warily approached. “Is that your ol’ gray head I’m seein’ after all these years?”

  Scratch reined up, curious as to who might possibly know him here in the middle of the overland trail. From the appearance of the hut and that tiny corral penning up but three bone-rack horses, this damn well couldn’t be Bridger’s post. This was no more than a poor man’s shanty.

  He squinted into the darkened doorway. “That’s me, Titus Bass,” he responded, leaning over his big pommel the size of a Mexican orange. “Say, friend, step on out here where I can see you too.”

  The figure took but a moment to prop his rifle inside the doorway before he ventured two steps into the spring light, shading his eyes as he gazed up at Bass, when he suddenly caught sight of the others some sixty yards back.

  “Uncle Jack? That really you, coon?”

  Jack Robinson* tore his eyes off the others and held his hand up to the horseman. “Damn, Titus Bass. I ain’t see’d you since afore beaver went belly-up!” He gazed a moment at their joined hands. “It really you—not no ghost of your own self?”

  Releasing his hand from the younger man’s grip, Bass slipped to the ground. “Flesh an’ blood, Uncle Jack. Damn, but I could say the same for you. Thort you’d gone belly-up yourself, or run off to Oregon country.”

  The skinny Robinson shook his head, the loose wattles of his fleshy neck shaking like a turkey gobbler’s. “Here’s as pretty a piece of country as I’d ever wanna lay tracks in, Titus Bass. Think I’ll for sure stay in these parts till it’s time for my bones to lay in the wind.”

  Scratch waved the others on. “I see’d a brown face in the window there. You got yourself a woman for company?”

  Robinson glanced at the hut, putting his fingers between his teeth, and whistled. “My second. This’un’s a Snake. One of Washakie’s nieces. A real black-skinned bitch, but she’s got her a good heart. Warm place to keep my pecker in the winter too.”

  “Can’t beat a robe-warmer in this high country,” Titus agreed.

  Shading his face again, Robinson squinted at the pair of bounding dogs, then peered at those oncoming riders. “Looks like you got you a new squaw, Titus Bass.”

  “Naw, that’s Shad Sweete’s woman. Cheyenne, she be, from down near Bents’ big lodge on the Arkansas.”

  “Sweete’s his name?”

  Titus nodded as the others got closer and started halting to dismount while Flea circled up their extra horses.

  Robinson took a step closer to Bass. “That’un serve with Bridger any?”

  “Him an’ Gabe was real tight of a time,” Bass explained as he led his horse over to the corral and tied off the reins to the top rail. “How far’s Bridger’s post from you?”

  Uncle Jack pointed off to the southwest. “Should be there afore supper.” He watched Sweete start toward them. “I was the nigger told Bridger he ought’n build his post here on the Black’s Fork.” He turned to face Shadrach, announcing, “C’mon over. Any friend of Bridger’s is a friend o’ mine.”

  “When you come to the mountains, Uncle Jack?” Sweete asked after they shook hands.

  “Thirty-one. Rode west with Fitzpatrick. Mizzable trip: Jed Smith was kill’t by Comanches on the Cimarron water scrape. After we took on supplies in Taos from Davey Jackson, I stayed on with Fitz and we come north. Next summer when we fought the Blackfoot in Pierre’s Hole, I was wounded.”

  Titus asked, “Ronnyvoo of thirty-two?”

  “Weren’t nothing bad, really,” Robinson explained. “I was off my feed for the fall hunt, but stayed on my feet through till winter.” He turned and whistled again. “Madame Jack! Godblessit—get out here, now!”

  He turned back to the two trappers and shrugged, saying, “She’s a bit shy when there’s other wimmens about. Just menfolk show up, why—she’s there, lickety on the spot. But when squaws come about, she’s a shy one.”

  From the doorway emerged a stocky woman with an amiable face, carrying a large gourd trussed up in a leather cradle complete with a wooden handle. From the fingers of her other hand were suspended four tin cups, two of which she passed out to the trappers, then poured each of them a splash of cool water from the gourd.

  “You mind we noon with you, rest the horses?” Titus inquired.

  Robinson smiled warmly. “I’d like that, like that a lot, boys. Gimme a chance to talk to new ears. Haven’t yet had much travel on the road this year.”

  “Road?” Sweete echoed.

  “Oregon Road,” Robinson declared to the tall man. “Wasn’t you coming over the Southern Pass from the east?”

  “No, we come south, through that Red Desert country,” Scratch explained. “That what they call that way over the pass now? The Oregon Road?”

  “Ever since last summer,” Robinson said. “Some say it’s the Emigrant Road, for it’s carried a few on to California.”

  “Some claim American soldiers took Californy. But I’ll wager it’s Mexican country, still,” Bass said as he handed his cup to Waits-by-the-Water.

  “Most of ’em we see’d come through last year are makin’ for Oregon,” Jack went on. “I managed to trade off some good stock for what animals they wored out getting this far west.”

  Quickly glancing about, Scratch said, “Not them skinny horses. What good stock you got, Uncle Jack?”

  “Have ’em grazing over yonder, a mile or more, on some good grass aways up the Black’s—trail you’ll foller to get to Bridger’s big post.”

  Sweete asked, “Injuns don’t raid?”

  “Hell,” Jack snorted, “this here’s Snake country. They take good care of us fellers. Both Gabe and me got hitched into the tribe, you see. Utes don’t dare come north, and them Bannocks is afraid to make Washakie angry. Naw, we don’t worry none ’bout Injuns runnin’ off our stock. Maybeso you fellers ought’n think ’bout settlin’ down on Black’s Fork like me an’ Gabe done.”

  “Just gonna visit for a spell is all,” Sweete answered for them both. “My woman’s country is back on the other side of the mountains.”

  “An’ my family’s home is in Crow country,” Bass stated. “We only come to visit Gabe. Thankee for the offer but it ain’t likely we’ll be putting down no roots.”

  “Not in no country where there’s settlers passing through on their way to Oregon country,” Shad said as he took a cup of water to his young son.

  Robinson explained, “Man does what he can, now that there ain’t no furs the traders want—’ceptin’ buffler hides.”

  “Much as I can,” Titus offered, “I’ll stay off this here road you said them corncrackers and sodbusters ride west.”

  “Same road Billy Sublette, Pilcher, an’ Drips come west to ronnyvoo with their go
ods,” Robinson explained after he shuffled his wife back into the hut to fetch some dried meat to offer their midday guests.

  “That means these overlanders using the same trail?” Scratch inquired.

  Robinson nodded. “From Fort Bridger, they’ll break north to Fort Hall.”

  “An’ where they go from Hallee?” Titus asked.

  “Striking out through that Snake country.”

  Wagging his head, Sweete said, “That’s ’bout the roughest piece of ground I ever put a horse through.”

  Scratch turned to Shad and asked, “You been west of Hallee?”

  “More’n once. Was a time the booshways didn’t want the English to have that country all to their own.”

  “Can’t be fit for wagons,” Scratch grumbled.

  “Ain’t,” Robinson agreed. “Some’ll try to get their wagons on from Fort Hall, take ’em clear to the Willamette. Other’ns gonna sell off their wagons to them English at Fort Hall—trade for mules and horses to get ’em on to the Columbia.”

  “Bet you ain’t ever floated down that Columbia River, Shadrach!” Bass needled his tall friend.

  “I s’pose you’re claimin’ you did?”

  “How the hell other way a man gonna get to meet Doctor John at Fort Vancouver?” Titus sneered. “An’ I sure as the devil didn’t float around the horn in no sea ship to get there neither!”

  “I forgot—you told me ’bout that trip,” Sweete admitted.

  In a quieter voice, Titus confided, “That float o’ mine down the Columbia with Jarrell Thornbrugh was fearsome enough to make my ass stay puckered for a month of Sundays!”*

  Soon enough there was dried meat for them all to chew on while the horses cropped at the new grass growing taller and thicker in the meadows surrounding Robinson’s poor hut.

  “I enjoyed myself, Uncle Jack,” Titus declared later, as he had stood and held his hand out to their host. “I truly did.”

  “You come on back an’ visit any time. Both of you.”

  “We’ll be close,” Shad advised. “A fella can ride over for a visit ’most any time.”

  Robinson and Madame Jack, his Shoshone wife, stood outside their hut, arm in arm as they waved the others on their way.

  The sun was warm on his face and the back of his hands as he gave his last salute and plodded on up Black’s Fork. A spring breeze rustled through the sage, stirring a strong scent of turpentine through the air, just before a couple of dozen sage grouse whirred away from the path of their horses, the birds chucking as they settled back to earth and sorted themselves out again for their timeless dance on this patch of mating ground. It was a good day, here in a country where no emigrants plowed fields, no Frenchmen stole plews or a man’s daughter, no Indians came to trouble a man and his hard-won peace. Maybe Bridger and Robinson did have things figured right … at least for themselves. Trouble was, Titus doubted he could stay planted in one spot for long enough to raise up log walls or sink down some roots. Yet walls and roots were what it took for a man to survive in this part of the world rapidly changing around him.

  For men like him and Shad, they had to keep on searching out that shrinking corner of the world where it wouldn’t matter if they refused to build walls and overlay them with roofs, refused to plant crops or tend a store. And if he was lucky, Scratch brooded, that shrinking sliver of the old life and the old world would last just long enough till Titus Bass could no longer load his gun, mount his horse, and ride away from what was closing in around him. Maybeso what he had come to call his used-to-be country would last long enough to see a used-to-be man clear through till the end of his days.

  “See that smoke yonder?” Titus asked his son as the two of them reined up with Shad Sweete, at the breast of a low ridge.

  “Top of the trees?”

  “Yep. What smoke you make it out to be?”

  The youngster was thoughtful a moment. “Not grass, Popo. Fire smoke.”

  “Right again, boy. Bet we’ll spot horses, maybe some lodges by the time we cover ’nother hour or so.”

  “How long you figger it from here?” Shad squinted into the late spring sunlight.

  “I callate we’ll be drinking from Bridger’s jug afore the sun goes down.”

  From the mouth of Ham’s Fork a day ago they had followed Black’s Fork as it looped around and made for the southwest. Now they had entered a broad valley where this tributary of the Green River was splintered into numerous small creeks with springtime’s mountain runoff, all of which relentlessly cut itself through the fertile, verdant meadows to form a series of narrow islands carpeted with tall grass. Tall, old cottonwoods stood stately on the banks of every rivulet, heads and shoulders above younger saplings. Willow, alder, and prairie ash cloaked the streams.

  “Gabe picked him a sure ’nough good spot,” Sweete marveled as they continued toward the smoke. “How you figger the winters in this country?”

  “You forgot, Shadrach?” Titus snorted. “The whole blamed valley of the Green damned well gotta be about the coldest place in the mountains. Chills my bones just thinking ’bout it.”

  “Then why’d Gabe an’ Vaskiss raise their post here?”

  With a shrug, Scratch turned in the saddle and pointed to the northeast. “The Southern Pass—it’s off that way, back to Fort John and the road from the settlements. An’ Fort Hall, it’s off yonder in that direction.”

  Sweete asked impatiently, “Which means?”

  “Which means Bridger’s post is right on this here road what takes folks on to Oregon.”

  “Lookit all the grass there is for stock, right close,” Sweete added.

  “Allays good to have plenty of grass—you never know who’s gonna be droppin’ in to pay their respects,” Titus said with a grin and a wink. “Lookee there through the trees.”

  “More smoke. You figger that for Gabe’s post?”

  Bass nodded. “Hell if it don’t look like peeled timbers to me!”

  Quickly turning in their saddles, both men tore their hats from their heads and signaled back to their wives. Then Scratch said to Flea, “We set off an’ your horses get to running, just let ’em go an’ stay with them. Only thing to watch for: Don’t let ’em find no prairie-dog town, or stumble getting down to a crik bottom, son.”

  The boy’s face flushed with excitement. “Flea go with you?”

  He considered it a brief moment, then grinned hugely. “Sure as shootin’ you can come along, boy! Stay hard on my tail an’ you’ll see how free men like Shad an’ your pa rode into ronnyvoo long summers ago—once upon a glory time! Whoooo-eee!”

  Both Sweete and Flea were caught unawares with the sudden explosiveness of the old man’s untamed yelp and his burst into motion. But those two rangy dogs were ready. In an instant they were lunging along beside the old trapper’s horse. No more than a heartbeat behind him came his son and an old friend, hammering heels into their horses, a long and shrill cry freeing itself from their throats as they followed Titus through the last fringe of cottonwoods, clattered across another narrow rivulet of Black’s Fork, then exploded up the last low riverbank that swept them in a gentle arc toward that corner of the stockade they could spy through the last intervening stand of trees.

  Suddenly in full view were a half dozen small herds of horses, and even a few horned cattle too.

  Damn! Titus hadn’t seen beeves since trader Sublette brought a milk cow to ronnyvoo long summers gone now.

  And far beyond the timbered walls stood more than thirty buffalo-hide lodges, where brown-skinned women worked over outdoor fires and naked children chased one another in their games. Bridger had him an outright settlement of his own!

  In moments it became clear there were actually two stockades, one a bit larger than the other, but sharing a length of one timbered wall in common. The gates of both were visible to the riders as they came tearing in from the north, finally slowing their heaving horses to a lope on that broad flat … when a lone figure stepped into sight from one of the o
pen gates, the lowering sun at his back. He tore the flat-brimmed, low-crowned hat from his head and O’ed up his mouth for a greeting.

  “What’s your lather for, boys? Can’t be no redskins lickin’ it after you—”

  The instant his voice melted away in midsentence, the man slowly lowered his hat to his side and began to wag his head, a huge smile growing on his face. “As I live an’ breathe … if’n you ain’t a pair for these sore eyes!”

  “Gabe!” Shad shrieked as he bounded off his horse and hit the ground at a trot to seize the shorter man in his big arms while Ghost and Digger bounded around the two like pups.

  “Lordy!” Bridger gasped after several moments. “C-come peel this here b’ar off me, Scratch!”

  Reluctantly Shad released the trader and lowered Bridger to the ground once more as Titus legged out of his saddle and strode over to the pair.

  “Just look at you!” Bridger exclaimed to Sweete. Then he turned to Bass to ask, “He’s growed some since I last saw him. Don’cha think he’s growed some?”

  “I’ll allow I was still a pup when we first throwed in with the general,* Gabe,” Sweete said as he threw an arm back over Bridger’s shoulder, “but I ain’t growed outta a pair o’ mokersons in many a winter!”

  When Bridger stepped toward him with his arms opened, Bass gave the trader a fond embrace. “Damn, but it shines to see you, Gabe!”

  “How come you never rode down from Crow country to see me afore now?”

  “Ain’t been anywhere close to the Green in more summers than I care to count,” Scratch explained. “Last time it was … I think I rode through here with Ol’ Solitaire on our way south.”

  “South? Makin’ to Robidoux’s post?”

  “Gone farther, we did—all the way to Californy for some Mexican horses.”

  Bridger snorted, slapped his knee with his hat before he repositioned it on his head. “Was you in that bunch that throwed Peg-Leg out in the desert?”*

  “Yep. I figger Solitaire gave him better’n a oily-tongued backstabber deserved,” Scratch replied. “You ever hear what ever come of him?”