Death Rattle

5

He snaked the tip of his tongue through that gap between his back teeth. There at the bottom of the left side of his jaw a second tooth was gone now.

In the week since Mitchell pried out the first, its gaping hole had knitted up quite nicely, what with the way Scratch swished whiskey or salt water around in his mouth several times a day. But this second hole hadn’t closed yet, being fairly new the way it was.

For a few days there, his swollen, inflamed jaw began to feel better. Then the whole packed up and lit out from Sinclair’s Fort Davy Crockett. By that second morning on the tramp, Scratch woke up in almost as much pain as he had suffered before. This time he understood what had to be done, especially when Levin Mitchell came over to inspect his jaw in the gray light of that miserable, rainy dawn. The trapper tapped his finger against the side of another tooth in Bass’s head, and Titus groaned in agony. Not only with the heat of that immediate pain, but grumpy with the anticipation of what was to come. The only thing that had ever come close to that sort of torture had been when the Arapaho ripped off his topknot.

Bill Williams headed off to his packs to dig out a small canteen of whiskey while Bass dug for his ball puller in a gray-tinged resignation.

“Hol’ me down, fellas,” he begged the rest. “I know what’s coming and I’m gonna be kicking like a three-legged mule here when Mitchell grabs hol’t of that tooth.”

He did, for sure too.

But for some reason, that extraction didn’t hurt quite as much as the first had. And although he continued to bleed throughout the rest of that day on the trail, his jaw nonetheless felt better than it had for a long time. Maybe two of them, side by side, had gone bad together, he thought. Better to be shet of them both and start healing the poison that had swollen the whole side of his head.

Titus swatted at the tiny buffalo gnats swirling around his sweaty face now and pulled the hat brim down lower to shade his eyes from the midday sun as they plodded southwest down the Green River for Robidoux’s post. Five days gone from Brown’s Hole and Sinclair’s fort already, which by his reckoning should put them close to rendezvousing with Peg-Leg Smith, what with the way this bunch had been licking over the ground.

He and Bill Williams ended up riding off for Fort Uintah with thirteen men in tow. To march right into California with Bill’s brazen plan of sweeping up two thousand or more Mexican horses, Scratch knew they would need more than twenty riders. For the time being, the success of their California expedition rested in the lap of Thomas L. Smith, that fiery redheaded, hot-tempered veteran of both the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and more than one lucrative journey to the land of long-horned ranchos. If Peg-Leg ended up drafting another ten or more recruits, then their foray against the land of the missions would make each of the riders a wealthy man no more than weeks from now.

But if they attempted to punch their way into and out of California with too weak a force—hurled up against not only the vaqueros tending the ranchos but small squads of Mexican soldados as well—then this daring ride west into that foreign land lapped by the western ocean could well be their last hurraw. And he would never see his family again.

The days had not only been growing longer but hotter too, each night not nearly so cool as they had been. Summer was ready to bloom. The knitting of the stars overhead had taken a definite northward shift, along with that tilt to the path the sun scoured across the sky each day. It glowed hotter every morning, and hung up there longer every afternoon.

Then today they had run across these mists of troublesome buffalo gnats—disgusting little creatures so tiny a man might miss them if it weren’t for the fact that they traveled in clouds that swarmed and swirled around the heads of their horses and pack animals, hovered around every square inch of bare flesh the men had exposed to the galling heat. It was as if the creatures’ very feet were on fire when they alighted on his flesh, even before the gnats began to bite and burrow.

No wonder the shaggy buffalo had long, coarse, matted hair shrouding its eyes. An admirable protection from these annoying insects that zealously followed the herds, or any other warm-blooded, breathing creature who happened to pass close enough that the cloudy swarms sensed the body heat of those other unsuspecting mammals.

By midafternoon when they stopped to let the horses drink, the swarms surprisingly drifted off, theirs a dark mist weaving up the cooler bottom of a coulee as the sun finally appeared committed to falling toward the western horizon that day. Bass knelt on the creekbank, leaned over, and drank alongside the men and animals. Then he freed a second black-silk kerchief where he had knotted it around the strap to his shooting pouch and soaked the cloth in the cold water. After wringing it out, he rubbed it over his face, pulling his long hair aside so he could swab the back of his clammy neck. That done, he crudely knotted it around his long, coarse hair, allowing the damp handkerchief to drip, drip, drip down his backbone as he stood and stepped over to Williams.

“Was just cogitating on somethin’, Bill,” he began.

Williams looked up at Bass. “The heat can damn well swell up a man’s head like that. It’s a fact.”

“I figger you got yourself a damned good reason why you’re heading southwest across the wastes to California this time of year.”

“I do.” And Williams bent over for one last noisy slurp at the creek. Then he stood and explained. “Any other time of the year, this right here would be a problem.”

The leader gestured at the gurgling creek.

“Water,” Titus observed.

“Water,” Williams repeated. “Come late summer, them creeks and springs and seeps down in that country we’re gonna have to ride through will all be drying up—disappearing into dust.”

A few of the other riders were stepping closer as Scratch remarked, “Weather’d be cooler come autumn.”

“But with nary a drop of rain or a flake of snow to refill them waterholes,” Williams declared. “Naw, my friend—you’ll see for your own self that there’s but one time of the year to make this crossing. ’Specially when we’re pushing thousands of horses ahead of us, and every last one of ’em needs a lot of water to make it back to these here mountains.”

“Only gonna get hotter from here on out,” Scratch stated. “South where we’re headed.”

“We ain’t see hot yet,” Williams warned. “Ain’t seen nothing of dry either. I wouldn’t dare try what we’re about to do any other time of the year but here at the end of spring. Turning back by midsummer. Any later’n that—why, our bones might just rot out there in them wastes with the bones of all them Mexican horses we couldn’t get back to the mountains without water.”

With a grin, Bass snorted, “So you claim we ain’t on a fool’s errand?”

“Could be, ol’ friend,” Bill replied, smiling.

“That’s good,” Titus said as he slapped a hand on the older trapper’s shoulder. “I was beginning to wonder if you wasn’t making it sound like this was serious business. Sure as hell glad to hear we’re out on some great lark you dreamed up, Bill! Beaver’s gone to hell and the mountain trade is disappeared like winter breath smoke—why, no better reason we ought’n just have ourselves some fun!”

“Especially if it’s the last thing any of us do in this here life,” Williams said, his grin slowly fading. “Awright, you ciboleros!” he shouted at the others, calling them buffalo hunters. “Let’s get back in the saddle—by my reckoning, we’ll be pounding on Robidoux’s back door by sundown!”

The sun had turned every butte and mesa a startling red, so bloodily surreal it seemed as if the entire earth around them were the same burnished copper as were those trinkets and religious objects hammered out by a Mexican craftsman. Then down in that wide bottom he recognized from three years past, Scratch spotted the stockade and the small herds of horses grazing here and there on the low hillsides farther downriver.

They could hear distant voices hallooing and begin to make out telltale shadows of men emerging at the top of the near wall, a few coming out of the stockade on foot to have themselves a look. Across the river from the post stood a scattering of lodges, low and squat. Ute, he suspected.

“That you, Bill?” a voice cried as they approached.

“Peg-Leg?”

One of the figures hobbled away from the rest of those on foot and waved his hat. “You brung a good bunch with you?”

Williams reined to a halt beside Smith, held down his hand, and they clasped wrists. “Not near enough to bring out all them horses I planned on, Peg-Leg.” He straightened in the saddle and sighed. “I’m hoping you done us some good here.”

“Got a few hands, Bill,” Smith admitted. “But I didn’t come up with near as many as we’d hoped would come west with us to the Mexican diggings.”

“Let’s go have us some victuals,” Bass said as he brought his roan to a halt on the other side of Smith.

“Lordee tells. That really Scratch?” Peg-Leg asked as he pivoted on the wooden limb.

“How-do, Thomas,” Titus cheered as more of their bunch came to a halt around them.

For a moment Smith glared hard-eyed at Bass, then suddenly grinned as he held up his hand to the horseman. “Been a long time, Scratch. I see no gol-durned Black-foot’s knocked you in the head and stole what you got left for a mangy skelp.”

“You was hoping my hair would get raised after we stole them horses back from you?”

Smith laughed easy and genuine. “I ain’t never carried me no hard feelings for nothing, Scratch. Less of all, for you and them others coming here to take back them Snake horses.”

“It’s all water gone downhill long ago,” Titus mused.

“Damn sure is,” Smith agreed. “Why—when me an’ Bill left here after that ruckus we had with you an’ Walker, we ended up stealin’ a lot more horses from the Mexicans that year!”

“More horses’n we could’ve stole round here!” Bill roared.

Williams and Smith had their chuckle before Peg-Leg turned and hobbled off with a wave, starting the procession toward the stockade as shadows quickly deepened. More hallooing greeted the new arrivals as they neared the walls, men streaming out that lone open gate as lanterns began to glow behind the tiny, rawhide-covered windows pocking the walls of those few miserable cabins inside the fort.

“Robidoux here?” Bill asked.

“He’s here,” Smith declared as they halted before the gate. “But he’ll be leaving for Taos soon to fetch up more trade goods. Leave off your horses to graze over yonder with ours and bring your gear inside the walls. We been sleeping inside under the stars nights waiting for you.”

“We? Who else you got gonna be a good gun to have along?” Williams inquired.

“Two of them went with us that first year, Bill.”

“Who?”

“Dick … Dick Owens,” Smith declared guardedly, his voice lowering. “And, Thompson too.”

“Philip Thompson?” Bass echoed in alarm.

Smith pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes knowingly, and nodded. “You two fellers just stay outta each other’s way, and we won’t have us no trouble on this ride.”

Just how in blue blazes could two men keep from stepping on one another’s tails when both of them were going to be following Bill Williams and Thomas L. Smith out to California and back again with several thousand horses?

Maybe he just ought to pack up come morning and light out for the Bent brothers’ Arkansas fort, or one of those posts farther north on the South Platte. Perhaps he could dig up his cache near the mouth of the Popo Agie and trade off a few peltries, managing to end up with what geegaws he wanted for his woman, those things he wanted to give his children. Not everything to be sure. Only a soft-brained idiot wouldn’t admit that the bottom had gone out of beaver and it was going to be some time before the business rehabilitated itself. But in the meantime, Scratch figured he could get a little of this and a little of that, enough to show his family just how much he cared. If a man didn’t bust his ass to make it so his family could have a few good things—what in hell did a man bust his ass for anyway?

Time was, when there were no strings on his heart, Titus worked those freezing months in the high-country streams so he could reward himself with a good time once a year or so at summer rendezvous, maybe afford a new shirt or a pair of those fancy black-silk handkerchiefs, besides his necessaries. But a man didn’t work just to make a living … that made him nothing more than a slave to those who bought the fruits of his labor.

Now there weren’t that many buyers left. And what those few buyers were paying for plew wasn’t near enough to make a good living for any man daring to wade around in icy streams. Beaver was gone belly-up. Buffalo hides brought a squaw far more than the labors of any trapper. Buffalo better’n beaver? These mountains sure as hell had gone crazy!

Any man with a tin cup full of beads, a few hanks of silk ribbon, or a dozen packets of vermillion could talk a back-broke squaw out of a buffalo robe … when a man had to work hardscrabble in finding a likely stream with good sign, choose where to make his set, wade out crotch deep to pound in his trap stake, then wait before he would return to learn if his efforts had been rewarded or not.

But with buffalo, all a nigger had to do was trade off a few cheap geegaws for a winter-kill’t robe!

Maybe there was a chance the Bents or other traders on east of the mountains would give him a fair enough price on his beaver that he would not have to return home to Crow country empty-handed come autumn. He sure enough had time to pull out in the morning, tramp south to avoid those low passes still clogged with snow, then swing back north again along the Front Range—getting back home to her in good time before she’d start to fret and worry.

Perhaps when he got back home, he might even trade away some of that foofaraw he bartered off the traders for a few robes from the Crow women up in Absaroka. He could carry those robes over east to Tullock near the mouth of the Tongue—

What a chuckleheaded fool he was! Caught himself scheming how to become a robe trader on his own hook. No sense in sinking that low. A man had his pride and self-respect. A man had to earn himself a living … not live off the sweat of others.

But, this raid on California might well be the last shining chance to rear its head up in the middle of the twisting path that was his life. In dimly remembered years gone before he had recognized that first great opportunity when it stared him in the face near Rabbit Flash, Kentucky. Eagerly he seized that chance to escape the life of a farmer, to float down the great rivers all the way to New Orleans—to grapple with life on his terms.

But once in St. Louis he had all but smothered that fire in his breast out of fear or not knowing, worse yet—out of self-doubt. Another opportunity beckoned, standing squarely athwart his path, seductively beckoning him to the Rocky Mountains if only he dared to stare Lady Fate in the eye.

When he lost hair and was left for dead in those shining mountains, lesser men would wisely have chosen a different path from there on out. And when he learned that three former friends had stolen everything from him, lesser men would never have set out to put things right, or die trying. Later when an old friend killed a chief’s wife and Bass was handed the task of bringing back the hair—most men, lesser men to be sure, would have ridden off and never come back.…

Over and over life had laid obstacles and opportunities in his path, to do with either as he saw fit. And here at Fort Uintah as the raiders gathered before setting off for the California missions and ranchos, Lady Fate was beckoning to him once again. Luring, enticing, seductive in her sloe-eyed, half-lidded come-hither of an unflinching invitation. Ride to California and bring back his share of the horses he could then sell to the highest bidder. Just as things had been with beaver in the heyday of the fur trade.

He could turn his back on what might be this one last chance before these mountains changed forever … turn his back, ride away come morning, and wonder for all the rest of his days what might have been for him and those he loved.

But, Titus Bass had never shirked opportunity, or flinched in the face of challenge. As one of the last hardy holdouts, he had ridden down the moon on the beaver trade. What more was he expected to do, after all? This raid could bring him the wealth that had eluded him for all these seasons. But to make it, he had to put up with Philip Thompson.

“That who I think it is, Peg-Leg?” the tall, rawboned Thompson asked as Bill Williams’s newcomers stepped into the post square.

“Who?” Smith asked.

“That one.” And Thompson pointed arrogantly at Bass.

Most of the other trappers eased aside, left and right, so that no one stood between them now.

“Shit, Phil,” Dick Owens replied dumbly. “You know ’im. That’s Bass. He was with Walker, Meek, and the rest when they come to steal back your horses an’ kill you few winters back.”

“I ’member that!” Thompson snapped as he came to a halt about four paces from Titus. “I remember saying I figgered the whole shebang weren’t worth killing a white man over … but this here nigger said he’d gut me if he had the chance.”

Williams stepped into that dangerous ground between them. “There was a fire lit under all of us that cold day. No use bringing it up again—”

“There’s only one other nigger I wanted to get my hands on as bad as I wanted to get my hands on Joe Walker,” Thompson admitted with a grumble. “The white nigger who made them Yutas turn away.”

Titus said, “Ol’ Bill never told me you was carrying a tumble grudge for me after all this time, Thompson.”

“Only against Walker for calling me out,” Thompson confessed.

“But you allays talked ’bout Bass in the same breath as Walker,” Dick Owens disclosed.

“That’s right,” Thompson said. “I carried a sour belly for saying you’d gut me if’n you had the chance.”

“We all had bad feelings back then,” Smith explained. “But now we’re going to California together so we’re peaceful—”

Williams interrupted, “Out in California both of you can shoot your share of bean-bellies to get it out of your craws. Just don’t cause me no problems or I’ll leave both of you hanging from a low tree so the buzzards can pick out your eyeballs.”

Smith turned on Thompson. “You wanna back out of our plan, Phil?”

“No,” Thompson replied grudgingly. “I wanna go to California, an’ steal enough horses to make myself a rich man.”

Then Smith turned to Bass. “Awright, Scratch. Do you wanna back out of Bill’s plan?”

Wordlessly, he glared at Thompson a long moment before answering. “I’m riding to California with this outfit.”

“If you’re both coming along, then hear me out,” Smith warned. “You two can either have it out right here and now—get it over and done with so’s one of you is dead on this spot … or, you can swear to me an’ Bill there ain’t gonna be no problems here on out.”

“Why—sure, Peg-Leg,” Thompson vowed. “I figger I can let bygones be bygones with this nigger said he’d gut me first chance he got. I’ll make peace with Titus Bass.” And he held out his hand as he took two steps forward across that open space.

The rest of them waited around Scratch as he stared at that hand Thompson offered. Finally he said, “I s’pose if we’re gonna be fighting Injuns and Mexicans, we don’t need be fighting each other.”

He seized Thompson’s big paw and shook it, looking briefly into those eyes where there really was no warmth. Although Thompson’s handshake was firm, although there was a smile on the man’s face, Titus Bass didn’t believe Thompson meant any of it.

Williams turned to Smith. “Now we got that settled, you come up with some broodmares, Peg-Leg?”

Smith nodded eagerly. “I traded for eight of ’em.”

“Where you get ’em?” Mitchell inquired.

Peg-Leg jabbed a thumb in the direction of the nearby village. “Them Yutas are keeping an eye on ’em till we’re ready to ride off.”

“They’ll keep the foals with them?” Williams asked.

“Yep, just the way we planned, Bill. I promised ’em some horses for the use of their mares.”

The bony, angular old trapper turned back to the entire crowd and roared, “Looks like we’ve got a reason to let the wolf out to howl tonight, boys! In two days we’re on our way to California … an’ that means there won’t be no whiskey after we ride outta here!”

It was downright boneheaded of him to expect that no trouble would ignite there inside Robidoux’s stockade after they started mixing liquor with the bold talk of men about to ride off on a daring journey, uncertain of their return.

“Maybeso out to California, we’ll all get a chance to see just how big your huevos are, Titus Bass,” growled Philip Thompson, his tongue thickened by whiskey.

Williams laid a hand on Bass’s forearm without saying a word. After a moment, Titus slid the arm out from underneath the hand.

“You wanna know how big my eggs are, you don’t have to wait till Californy,” Scratch shot back. “S’pose you come find out right now.”

Thompson took a swig of his whiskey, then dragged the back of his hand across his lips. “I don’t figger neither of us is in any shape to have at each other right now, ol’ man. Better we square off when we ain’t been drinking.”

“In the cups or not, you’re a yellow-backed polecat, Thompson.”

The taller man bolted upright, wavered unsteadily a moment as he rocked on the balls of his feet, preparing to lunge across the circle for Bass, when two others caught him by the arms.

“Lemme go!” Thompson snarled as he flailed at those who held him prisoner. “I’m gonna tear out his gullet with my own hands!”

“You heard ’im. Let ’im go,” Bass echoed as he stood and adjusted his belt, his left hand brushing the handles on both knives where they lay tucked at the small of his back. “Man wants me to kill ’im here and now—I’ll oblige the nigger.”

Thompson’s face grew red with more than the flush of whiskey. “Y-you’re the one’s gonna d-die tonight!”

Smith came up to stand in front of Thompson, who danced from side to side as far as he could to keep his eyes on Bass.

Peg-Leg said, “You’ve had more’n your fill of whiskey this night, Philip. G’won to blankets and sleep it off—”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere till I get my hands on that ol’ nigger!” Thompson roared, trying to shove Smith aside.

“I said go to your blankets,” Smith repeated, seizing Thompson’s shoulders in his hands. “Either you go on your own, or your friends can drag you off.”

“No one’s gonna drag me off!”

Scratch hollered, “I said let ’im go so we get this done here and now!”

That’s when Williams stepped in front of Bass. “The son of a bitch gets heavy in the horn when he’s in the cups, Scratch,” Bill explained in a sharp whisper. “He goes and sleeps it off, he won’t even remember any of this.”

“Trouble is—I’ll remember,” Titus warned.

“You ain’t nowhere near as drunk as him,” Williams declared. “Man with as much savvy as you oughtta know he should play out a little more rope for a horse gone wild.”

Bass wagged his head, saying, “One of us gonna get kill’t—”

“First off I’ll kill you, Bass!” Thompson screamed. “Then I’ll go find Joe Walker, Meek, and them others!”

With a sigh, Williams said, “Tell you what, Scratch. You swear to me you’ll lay back and not pull on Thompson’s short-hairs … and I’ll promise you I’ll watch your back till we get out of California and back across the desert.”

“Then what?” Titus asked in a harsh whisper, his eyes glaring at the howling Thompson, who was wildly flailing his arms around.

“Come then … I’ll let you do what you want with the bastard,” Williams vowed.

“Why don’t I save us a lot of time and trouble,” Scratch snorted, “and just let him take me on right now.”

Williams clamped onto Bass’s upper arm and squeezed down hard. “I need Thompson. He’s been to California with Peg-Leg and me before. ’Sides, if’n I throw Thompson out, he’ll take near all the rest of these fellas Peg-Leg had waiting for us here. We can’t do California ’thout Thompson.”

On the far side of the circle Titus watched an increasingly angry Smith suddenly swing an arm back and backhand Thompson. But that only made the drunk madder, lashing out with a foot at the wooden peg leg. Smith pivoted swiftly, then stepped close as he yanked out a belt pistol and cracked Thompson on the temple. The drunk sank between the two men struggling to hold him on his feet.

“Get him back to his blankets!” Smith grumbled. “I don’t wanna see any more of him till morning.”

“His time’s coming, Bill,” Titus reminded the older man.

Williams nodded. “Just say you’ll wait till we get to California and back across that goddamned desert.”

“Maybeso I should just leave off and go my own way.” Bass whimpered with regret that he’d even come this far. Staring in the eye what lay ahead from here on out.

“You didn’t ride all this way with me just to turn back now,” Williams argued. “You gonna try to find beaver this time o’ year? It’s the goddamned high summer, coon! Naw—you come this far with me because you knowed you wanted to do it. Maybe do it for your woman. Maybe do it for your own self. I don’t figger you for one to pull out now.”

He wanted to tell Williams he was wrong, wanted to shout it into his face … but the old trapper could likely see right through him—and already knew why Titus Bass had come this far.

“Awright,” Scratch finally said, some of the tension seeping out of his muscles. “I’ll walk wide around him … for now.”

“That’s all I ask, Scratch. Comes to Thompson and his friends, I promise you I’ll watch your back till it’s time for you to settle this between the two of you.”

“I’ll get my robe and blanket, leave the stockade,” Bass said quietly before he started away. “Better I go bed down somewhere else for the night.”