“I want Don’t Mix to play his flute songs for me,” Magpie said, holding up her folded hands before her as if pleading with her father. “I want all the other girls in camp to see him courting me—all those other girls who swoon when they watch him walk past them, when they talk about him among themselves at the creekbank. I want them to be so jealous of me.”
He wagged his head slowly now, eventually admitting, “I have never been afraid of taking on two enemies at one time in battle. Most often, they get in one another’s way. But against the two of you … I am beaten even before I can start!”
“You will let Don’t Mix come to our lodge and play his love songs for our daughter?” asked Waits-by-the-Water.
Titus nodded once, very grudgingly.
Magpie lunged against him, wrapping her arms around him tightly. “Oh, Popo! You will never be sorry for letting me have who I want for a husband.”
Laying his cheek down on the top of her head, he breathed in the sweet smell of her hair and remembered how Waits-by-the-Water had scented her own braids with crushed sage and dried wildflowers in the days of her youth. Then he reluctantly said, “I never want to regret letting Don’t Mix court you, Magpie. But even more important—I don’t ever want you to be sorry for that either.”
The camp was on the move early that summer of ’51, travois swaying under the weight of extra winter hides the men were hauling to the white trader’s post standing west of the mouth of the Rose Hip River* on the Elk River. After bartering for some supplies, Pretty On Top’s headmen had decided the village would move southwest toward the low mountains, where they could stay in those cool elevations through the hottest days of the summer, capturing wild horses for breeding and even making a visit to the small cave where monumental slabs of ice kept a water seep cold all summer long. Twice each year the band made this particular pilgrimage to Fort Alexander: once in the early summer, and again late in the fall—trading those furs fleshed, grained, and softened by the women, bartering for days at a time for all that the Apsaluuke people needed as they moved through the seasons, in the footsteps of the same circle they had followed since ancient times on the Missouri River far to the east.
Every evening last spring, when the skies cleared off and the sun had set behind the fiery clouds, Don’t Mix had shown up to play his love songs for Magpie. That first night he had stood right in front of the door, blowing the sweet notes from his flute. But Scratch would not let his daughter go outside the first time he showed up, nor the next two. Not until the fourth night. And then, only with her mother standing nearby, watching the two as Don’t Mix finished his love songs, then stepped close to Magpie to talk in tones so low even Waits-by-the-Water could not hear what the two young lovers were saying to one another. It wasn’t too many more days, she had explained to her husband, before the two young people stood with their foreheads touching, holding one another’s hands, gazing into each other’s eyes as they whispered their sweet entreaties beneath the spring starlight.
Sometimes, Titus found an excuse to slip outside the lodge after dinner as the night sky grew dark, carrying his clay pipe and tobacco pouch with him, finding a patch of nearby shadow beneath an overhanging tree or sometimes nestled back against a neighbor’s lodge—where he could watch and listen as this young man courted his daughter. It still rankled him that both women had convinced him that Don’t Mix was a superb catch for Magpie … because something still troubled him inside about the union. He did not know why he suffered those misgivings, but he believed that if he watched from hiding, he might learn enough either to refuse the young man as a suitor to Magpie or to grudgingly accept the young warrior.
“Can Flea come with me, down to the horses?”
Scratch looked up in surprise at Turns Back. The young man hadn’t made a sound as he came out of the trees behind the spot where the white man sat at the edge of the clearing—a father watching those two young lovers standing near the lodge, both of them wrapped in a single blanket, their foreheads touching as they whispered in low tones.
“Yes,” he said.
Scratch patted the ground beside him. The youngster settled close before his own eyes went to staring directly at the couple. For a long time Titus was aware that Turns Back kept his attention trained on his good friend and Magpie without saying a word to explain why he had come to ask about Flea.
Clearing his throat, Bass said, “Many nights you come to spend time with Rea.”
“Yes,” Turns Back agreed, his eyes landing briefly on the white man before he concentrated again on the couple some distance away, young lovers totally unaware they were watched by a friend and a father. “Flea may be much younger than me, but he is nonetheless a good companion.”
“You like spending time with my son?”
“Yes, he has taught me a lot about horses in the time we have been together.”
He reflected on that, watching how the young man kept looking at the couple. Then Titus asked, “You come no other time to see Flea. Only in the evening.”
“After supper, yes.”
“Now that I think about it, you come to see Flea whenever your friend Don’t Mix is here courting Flea’s sister.”
His eyes slowly came to the white man’s face. “Is that true? I did not realize I came to see my friend when Magpie was talking with Don’t Mix.”
Again he did not immediately speak, but instead watched as the young man’s gaze went back to the couple. Eventually Bass dared to flush out the inner ways of this youngster’s heart, asking, “Are you ever jealous of your friend Don’t Mix?”
“Jealous? Why?”
“Because he has won the heart of Magpie.”
To that point Turns Back had been wearing a mask stoically devoid of emotion. But now his face showed a visible hint of regret. “Has h-he won Magpie’s heart? Is this true?”
“I think so,” Bass said with his own regret. “After all, no other has come to court her.”
“Don’t Mix, he is a handsome man.”
“Is he?” Titus asked. “That’s what the girls think, but is he handsome to his friends as well?”
“Yes, I can see why any girl, and especially someone as pretty as Magpie, would give her heart to such a handsome warrior,” Turns Back explained. “For years now I have seen how the girls look at Don’t Mix.”
“And you’ve wished the girls looked at you the same way?”
“Yes … I mean, I used to wish that,” the youngster said. “But, after some time, I realized that they never would, especially Magpie, because I am not a handsome man the way Don’t Mix is so … so—”
“Pretty?”
Turns Back looked at him. “Yes, he is so handsome he is pretty. I can see why Magpie gave him her heart.”
“But does he have a good heart to give her in return?”
“Yes. You will be his father-in-law. Don’t worry about your daughter. Don’t Mix will take good care of her, and treat her well.”
“But is he the best man for her?” Titus prodded. “Isn’t there another who would treat her far better, love her far more deeply than Don’t Mix ever could?”
“How could that be?” he asked, looking at the white man.
“Because a big part of Don’t Mix’s heart is in love with himself,” Titus explained. “Couldn’t there be someone else who has a very strong heart for my daughter, someone who has never spoken up to her about his feelings … some young man who will love her better than any man ever could … because his love is truly hers alone, and not mixed up with his love for himself?”
“I-I don’t know what you are getting at.”
Titus reached out and laid his old hand on the youngster’s bare knee, saying, “I have always thought that the most important reason why Don’t Mix began courting my daughter is that she is pretty enough for such a handsome warrior to have as his wife. She will look good with him. Everyone will say that they are a handsome couple. He did not ever think that Magpie’s beauty could lie beneath her skin as well. He
was never interested in what lay inside my daughter.”
“Perhaps he has not thought to look inside to see how beautiful she is—”
“Tell me what you think about my daughter, Turns Back.” He nudged the warrior, squeezing the youth’s knee paternally. “Better yet, tell me why you never came to court her yourself.”
He turned, stared at the old trapper, and swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you want me to say—”
“Say what is in your heart. What you feel about Magpie.”
The young man looked again at the couple, staring a long time before he finally spoke. “I think she is the finest woman any man could marry.”
“Because she is beautiful?”
Turns Back shook his head. “No. Because she is gentle. I have seen her with Jackrabbit, and little Crane. She will make a fine mother to her children.”
“What else do you think about her?”
“I think Don’t Mix is the luckiest man alive.”
That made his heart feel so heavy and sad. Titus felt the hot sting of tears there in the dark as a tall, thin, and weedy youngster emerged from his parents’ lodge and noticed the couple. Flea shook his head in adolescent disgust, then turned and hollered into the darkness.
“Popo!”
“Over here, son!”
Flea started toward them. Turns Back clambered to his feet, dusting off his breechclout. Titus got up much slower than the young man. He grabbed the warrior’s wrist.
“Don’t you think Magpie deserves to hear what you think of her?”
“I-I never could—”
“My daughter deserves to know,” he whispered insistently.
“Don’t Mix is my friend. I don’t want to embarrass him or Magpie.”
“Maybe Flea deserves a good brother-in-law too,” Titus, reflected.
“I like Flea,” he said as the fourteen-year-old youth stepped up to them in the shadows.
“I hope you like me,” Flea said, with a fraternal grin. “I’ve taught you almost everything you’ll ever know about horses.”
Turns Back laughed at that, in an easy way that made Titus feel all the more affection for this shy and selfless warrior.
“So,” Turns Back said as he laid a hand on Flea’s shoulder, “I know as much as you about horses, my friend!”
Flea snorted with that same easy laughter that had always had a special place in his father’s ear. He said to his older friend, “That’s where you are wrong, Turns Back. I’ve taught you everything you’ll ever know about horses, right?”
“Right.”
“But,” said Flea, “I haven’t taught you everything I know about horses!”
All three of them laughed together as Turns Back pounded the young man on the back. Already Flea stood an inch taller than his father, almost as tall as Turns Back. Then the young warrior sighed and turned, gazing again at the couple.
“I will speak to her for you,” Scratch said quietly. “If you won’t speak for yourself.”
“No, no. I could not have you do that,” Turns Back protested. “There’s no reason to cause trouble for the two of them.”
Flea studied the two older men suspiciously and asked, “Are you talking about Magpie? Are you?”
“Yes,” Titus answered, laying a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I think the wrong man is courting your sister, Flea.”
The youngster whirled on the warrior, saying with exasperation, “All this time I thought you were my friend! Why couldn’t you be honest with me and tell me you were only acting like you were my friend because you wanted to be around my sister—”
“I do want to be your friend.” And he put out a hand to grip the young man’s arm.
Flea shrugged it off, taking a step back, saying angrily, “How can I believe you anymore?”
“He’s telling you the truth, Flea,” Titus soothed. “Turns Back has never said anything to Magpie because he did not want to wreck his friendship with Don’t Mix.”
“But he doesn’t mind wrecking his friendship with me!”
“I don’t want that to happen, Flea,” Turns Back pleaded.
“This is an honorable man,” Scratch told his son. “If he could never bring himself to confess his feelings for Magpie, how was that being dishonest with you?”
Flea stood there, staring at the ground for a long time. “I don’t know—”
“Listen, Flea,” Turns Back said. “To prove to you just how much I want to be your friend, I want you to know that I will never tell your sister what I feel for her.”
“Y-you’d do that for me?” Flea asked.
“Yes, because I want to stay your friend. I would rather know that you trusted me than to have your sister fall in love with me. I could never marry your sister knowing that you thought I had betrayed you.”
“Do you see how honorable a man he is?”
Turning to glance at his father a moment, Flea looked at Turns Back and asked, “You … really do feel this strong in your heart for my sister?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“But—you never told her?”
“No.”
Flea looked at his father and said with a grin, “I think Magpie is going to marry the wrong man.”
Titus himself smiled, his heart swelling with pride and happiness. “I am glad you see things the same as I do, son.”
Turning back to the warrior, Flea said, “If you do not want to tell her yourself, I will tell my sister how you feel about her. Tonight, after Don’t Mix has gone—”
“N-n-no, Flea,” he pleaded. “I cannot make things hard on Magpie, or for my friend Don’t Mix.”
“But,” Titus said, “didn’t you tell me Magpie deserves the very best husband? The man who can love her the way she deserves to be loved?”
The young warrior eventually nodded with great reluctance.
“So,” Scratch asked him, “which of us will it be who tells Magpie that she is making a mistake to marry Don’t Mix? Will it be me, her father? Or Flea, her brother … or—”
“It will be me,” Turns Back interrupted, drawing back his shoulders there in the dark. “It is my heart the words must come from.”
* The mountain man’s word for the Mojave Indians.
* Crack in the Sky
* Rosebud Creek.
TWENTY-FIVE
By the middle of that summer’s moons, the two young lovers were no longer standing with the blanket wrapped around them and their foreheads touching. Instead, Waits-by-the-Water told them they could put the blanket over their heads to give them just about all the privacy young lovers could enjoy before they exchanged commitment vows in front of their families and friends.
But, it hadn’t been an easy journey seeing Magpie to her wedding day. For some time Titus Bass had known women were a headstrong bunch. He’d not encountered anything to change his opinion on that until he found out there was indeed a creature more headstrong than any woman he had ever known … and that was an adolescent female with her juices all stirred up for a handsome young warrior. How the family had ever gotten to this warm summer day without killing one another would be a story worth telling his grandchildren over and over again. A tale of pain and tears, a tale of just how the heart could shatter into innumerable pieces. A story of how Magpie eventually won a victory, how she had triumphed in what her heart wanted most.
Above the grassy meadow in sight of the log walls of Meldrum’s Fort Alexander the sun was reaching its zenith and the crowd had gathered, murmuring quietly, as Titus led Waits-by-the-Water through their midst, slowly making a circle of the great camp crescent, moving at the head of the throng, gathering more and more onlookers, who followed them back toward their lodge. Eventually they stood before their own door as the crowd parted and the pony carrying the young warrior came through the whispering people. Yes, he had never looked more handsome—this proud, young war leader. On a pony beside the youngster rode the old seer, Real Bird, his eyes grown even more milky of late. The pair of horsemen stopped b
efore the lodge of the white man and his Crow wife, dismounting and handing their reins to young herder boys who led the animals away.
The crowd fell to a hush as the young man took the old prophet’s arm and led Real Bird those last few steps, so that they both stood before the trapper who had made his home among the Apsaluuke people.
“Who is this comes to my lodge this day?” Titus asked as the crowd hushed.
“I am Don’t Mix,” the young warrior replied with a strong voice. “And I bring the holy man, Real Bird, with me.”
Already Scratch had a hard lump in his throat. The words came with difficulty as he croaked, “Why do you bring this holy man, this physician, this great healer with you today, Don’t Mix?”
“I bring the holy man here this day so that he can perform a wedding.”
“A wedding for who, Don’t Mix?”
He stood tall, a few inches above the old white man, as he proclaimed, “A wedding of your daughter—Magpie … and the man who loves her more than any other man ever could.”
“Who … who is this man who dares say he loves my daughter more than any other man ever could?” Scratch demanded. “Who dares to say that he loves my Magpie more than her father?”
“I would tell you his name,” Don’t Mix declared in a clear voice as he took a step aside, leaving Real Bird there before Waits-by-the-Water and Titus Bass, “but he will proudly tell you himself.”
“Who is this man?” the trapper demanded again, hurling his voice over the silent crowd. “I want him to show his face and tell me how much he loves my daughter before he hopes to take her hand in life’s hazardous journey.”
“It is me!” Turns Back announced at that dramatic moment, standing far to the side of the throng.
Expectantly, the crowd parted for his spotted pony. Behind him, Turns Back led a dozen of the finest horses in all of Absaroka. On two of them he had packed everything he owned, what few clothes and weapons were his alone, along with his shield and totems and the small shelter he and his new bride would erect at the edge of camp for their wedding night.
“Who speaks up, brave enough to say he is prepared to take my daughter from her father?” Titus roared, the lump hard in his throat, his eyes smarting as he looked upon this young man who came to a halt before the lodge.
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