Wind Walker

TWENTY

“I been out to Fort Vancouver myself … twice’t,” Esau Bass told the three men at the fire later that evening, as the sky deepened and the stars came out.

Their tongues fell silent, all of them stealing looks at one another until Bass trained his eyes on the black tradesman and clarified. “You … been to the Columbia … twice’t?”

He smiled and held up two fingers in a V. “Two times.”

Already Esau had finished explaining to Titus, Shadrach, and Roman Burwell how he put Taos at his back in 1837, while the three families took their supper around a small fire in the wagon camp. He described how he had abandoned the Mexican country when life grew harsh and lonely for a black-skinned man living among the many shades of brown. There were lots of pale folks, Esau had explained. But he was the only one the color of night.

“At first, I must’ve been a pure curiosity to them Mexicans,” he had told the group earlier, his English much improved through the last ten years among the British. “Later on, the hate was easy to see in their eyes.”

Working at Josiah Paddock’s side, they had struggled through three trading seasons in their store, slowly building their wealth and reputation while Esau listened to a litany of the tales about far-off places from daring adventurers. It wasn’t long before he became enraptured with those stories told by traders from California, who ventured with their caravans into the desert wastes that lay far to the south on the Old Spanish Trail; along with tales told by those who marched out of the Northwest to buy goods, speaking with strange accents so foreign to his ear, men who had hard English money to spend, along with the lure of mighty rivers and forests to boast about.

“I was a curiosity again, at least to these Hudson’s Bay men,” Esau admitted, scratching his head well salted with plenty of gray hair. “When the factor asked if I’d go back with him to the Snake, the Boise, clear to the Willamette too—I took my leave of Josiah. Wasn’t long after we’d moved from our little shop to a big store on the plaza.”

Only weeks before Esau abandoned life in Taos, the daring American entrepreneur Nathaniel Wyeth had sold his Snake River post to the British. The Hudson’s Bay employees had been making things as hard as they could on Wyeth’s American upstarts from their Fort Boise less than three hundred miles downriver from the Portneuf. Now the powerful British presence had consolidated its grip on this side of the mountains just as affairs turned tense on the diplomatic front, both countries laying claim to the fertile and fur-rich Oregon country.

“You’re English now, are you?” Shad asked. Near him lay the two dogs, both of them protectively gnawing on meaty bones Scratch had given them while the women had fussed over supper.

Esau shook his head. “Never thought of turning English. Was never asked neither. Come to ponder your question now, my coming from America didn’t ever make no difference to me—so it made no difference to the company what I was. At Vancouver I stayed that first rainy winter through, where I learned my cooper’s trade.” He smiled with pride. “Fast to pick up too.”

The following spring he was dispatched inland with the supply caravan being sent to outfit those two interior posts operating on the Snake, assigned to work the cooperage at Fort Boise. By the autumn of 1840 the company had moved Esau on upriver to Fort Hall, where he had remained as the fort’s cooper until four years ago, when his post factor sent him downriver to Vancouver with the fall packet, instructed to return the next spring with the annual caravan and with a new trade: wheelwright. With so many company carts and wagons moving up and down the trade corridor, and with all the more Americans migrating out of the East, it would pay for Hudson’s Bay to have a man handy at fashioning new wheels and repairing old, worn-out, or broken ones. By late in the spring of ’44 Esau was back at Fort Hall from his second journey to the mammoth Fort Vancouver.

“That’s just across the river from the mouth of the Willamette!” Roman Burwell exclaimed, barely containing his excitement as he leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees.

“Quite a show of Americans already in the valley,” Esau agreed.

“So you know the way there?” Sweete asked, a new and deep interest on his face.

Esau looked at the tall man. “I been there twice’t, why?”

In that sudden, heavy silence, Shad set his tin plate aside, stood, and moved off, gesturing for Shell Woman to follow him away from the fire’s light.

Drawing in a deep breath, Bass watched Sweete step away; then his eyes touched Roman’s before he asked, “Esau, how’d you take to the idee o’ leadin’ this bunch of farmers to the Willamette?”

“Go with you?” Esau squeaked.

“I ain’t goin’ along,” Titus confessed. “Not Shadrach neither.”

Wagging his head, the black man asked, “Why’d I ever wanna lead these folks to Oregon City?”

“You know of Oregon City?” Burwell cried, nearly spilling his tin plate of boiled beans as he squirmed atop a small crate.

“Been there a time, once only,” Esau admitted.

Titus leaned close to the black man at his left. “But you damn well know the way.”

“I s’pose,” he replied unsurely, “but that don’t make for a good reason for me to pick up and leave behind everything I worked hard for just to go—”

“Here you only work as a hired man,” Scratch reminded him. “When you put Taos at your back, didn’t you ever wanna be your own man again?”

Esau swallowed thoughtfully. “I been fine,” he responded firmly. “Been a good life for me in this place and with these men.”

“You’re a colored to ’em,” Bass said.

“An’ I’ll always be a Neegra to them Americans I meet coming through to Oregon.”

“How’d it be to stand on your own feet, be your own boss?” Titus tantalized him. “Maybeso to have your own shop in Oregon City?”

Scratch noticed how that sparked a light behind Roman Burwell’s eyes as well.

“He could!” Roman asserted. “By God, he could at that!”

Titus felt his mouth going dry. “So what you think of strikin’ out on your own?”

Esau’s face was grayed with doubt. “That’s a long, long way to go, just for a man to take such a chance. I-I ain’t ever led … folks.” He turned his head and gazed round at the wagon camp spread about the meadow. “To lead all these white folks—”

But Titus interrupted him, “The Esau I ’member knowin’ years back was a man what had the sand to run off from the Pawnee, a man with enough grit to point his nose west ’stead of goin’ back where things might be easy.”

The black man hung his head in recollection, staring down at his unfinished plate of beans. “All things would’ve been hard, I’d gone back where I come from again.”

“You the same fella I knowed years ago, with that same sand and fightin’ tallow?”

Esau’s eyes shone, as if he wanted to believe despite his deep misgivings. Still he resisted, “I got work steady. The pay isn’t much, but it takes care of things, gives me everything I could want.”

“Ever’thing … ’cept your own dream,” Titus declared, almost in a whisper. “Like all the rest of these farmers, some shopkeepers too. They’re all goin’ west to snatch at a dream with both hands. An’ you can grab your dream too.”

“I-I gotta sleep on this,” Esau admitted with a wag of his head. “This is a big … big thing and my head is hurtin’ with it already.”

“Yes, you sleep on it,” Roman said reassuringly.

Scratch laid his hand on Esau’s knee, saying, “Like we awready told you, Shadrach an’ me come from Bridger’s post to see if’n we could find these folks a pilot what could take ’em on to Oregon country. Hell, maybeso it’s a bad idee askin’ you if you’d lead ’em. Mayhaps better off would be you tell us if there’s a old fur man still about, one what would make a better pilot for this company. Someone knows where the camping grounds are, where lie the best fords of the Snake—”

“I know where those are,” Esau declared.

“I reckon on what you’re saying: Not ever’ man is ready to lead all these folks to their dreams,” Scratch cautioned. “I feel bad we offered you something you don’t want, Esau.”

“Ain’t … ain’t that at all,” the black man replied with his own reluctance. “Just … that it’s a mighty thing to do all at once: leave my work, set off for a new home, start on my own—”

“Same as all these folks are doing,” Roman reminded. “None of us any different from you. We just need someone who’s been there before to help along the road.”

As Sweete moved back into the light among them again, he remarked, “Did I hear you right, Esau—said you’d been there twice?”

When the tall man had settled on a stump and picked up his half-filled plate, Esau repeated, “Twice’t.”

“Scratch,” Shadrach began, looking at his old friend, “I don’t know but maybe it’d be better Esau had someone to ride ’long to Oregon country with him.”

“So mayhaps he wouldn’t feel like ever’thing’s layin’ on his shoulders?” Titus asked, studying Sweete’s face for more clues to the mood of his old friend’s mind. “You reckon we could find someone to go along, someone to help Esau?”

Shad’s head bobbed eagerly. “Right. Someone to help pilot the train with Esau, someone what’s handy at most ever’thing a pilot’s got to do.”

Titus licked his lips and asked, “So all Esau have to do is help that pilot by tellin’ him where the next camping grounds is, or what ford to cross a river?”

“That’s ’sactly what I was thinking,” Sweete admitted.

Titus turned to the tradesman and inquired, “You know anyone like that, Esau?”

The Negro shrugged. “I dunno of any man hereabouts what could fill them shoes.”

“Not a soul around?” Titus repeated. “Not a single man who could give you a hand with trail savvy?”

Esau wagged his head again. “I don’t figger there’s much call for such a man this far along the trail to the Willamette.”

Turning then to look at his old trapping partner, Scratch grinned as he said, “Shadrach, you got any notion where we’ll find someone what could help Esau pilot this bunch to Oregon?”

Combing his beard with his greasy fingers, Shadrach swallowed and declared, “Matter of fact, I-I went off an’ asked Toote about just such a thing.”

“’Bout what?” Esau asked.

“’Bout us goin’ to Oregon, see some brand-new country for us both.” He turned to find Titus’s grin grown into a huge smile.

Scratch asked, “What’d Shell Woman say to your idee?”

“Said it was fine by her for us to get a gander at more new country. Maybe even have us a look at the big salt ocean too.”

Rising to his feet, Bass stomped over to drag Sweete to his feet so he could throw his arms around the tall man. “I ain’t got no itch to see the ocean my own self—so one of these days you’ll have to come back to these here mountains so you can tell me if it’s all folks say it is.”

Shad pounded Bass on the back. “I figger to look up Meek an’ Newell while I’m in that country.”

“It’s been some years since they run off to make new homes in Oregon,” Titus said. “You gonna make yourself a home in that yonder land?”

“Naw,” and he gazed straight into Bass’s eyes. “This here’s our country, Titus Bass. Your eyes’ll see me coming back one day.”

“If’n we both still wear our hair.” Then Scratch turned to the tradesman. “So what say you, Esau Bass? Are you truly a free man? Would you care to make yourself one last journey to the Willamette with these here pilgrims?”

The black man swallowed hard, his brow furrowed in consternation. “Mr. Shadrach Sweete, you’re going along, positively sure?”

“Same as Titus Bass when he tells you something, you can count your blood on what I tell you.”

The Negro nodded and blinked. “You’ll pilot these white folks if’n I go along?”

“We’re both pilots, Esau.”

With a long sigh, the tradesman scratched at his graying head, then asked, “What if I figger to stay put right here?”

Shad glanced at Titus a moment, then returned his gaze to Esau. “I reckon I’ll have to lead this company to Oregon by my own self. Won’t be as easy as it’d be with you helpin’ me … but we’ll just have to make do.”

“This is a hard thing to think on,” Esau admitted. “I ain’t never had nothin’ near this hard to work on.”

“You sleep on it,” Bass said, “then tell us come morning.”

The wheelwright nodded tentatively. “Hard thing to turn my back on is you, Titus Bass—I never had much of anything till I was give a chance by you. That give me the courage to try another brave thing later on, when I come north to work for Hudson’s Bay. I got a good life now … so I don’t know if I can be so brave to leave everything behind again.”

Sweete agreed, “A man’s got him the right to give such important doin’s a night to think on—”

“When you fixin’ to put away?” Esau asked.

The two trappers both looked at Roman. He stood and said, “Two days. Give everyone a chance to lay over and visit the fort, stock to graze and get their strength for the crossing.”

“Two days,” Esau repeated quietly.

That’s when Burwell stepped up to the black man to say, “Esau, I ain’t ever had much to do with … with your kind back to home in Missouri. Hell, till this evening when you come to supper with Titus, I’d never shook hands with a black man before. But … I just want you to know you ain’t alone when it comes to putting everything you know behind you and having to stare down something that gives even a brave man some doubts.”

Bass took a step closer to the two, gazing intently at his son-in-law’s face, feeling such a wave of deep admiration, and newfound affection too.

Roman took a step closer to stand right before the shorter wheelwright. “Back east, I tried my hand at what I figured was one brave thing after another … but nothing gave me the scares the way setting off on this journey did. What I want you to know while you’re thinking this over: There’s as many chances out there for a man as he dares take them chances. Hell, none of us can guarantee what waits for us on what’s left of that road to Oregon. The folks on this train watched stillborns and babes die, seen men shoot themselves with their own guns and a passel of good people die of the fever before we finally outrun the cholera too.”

Then he paused of a sudden, struck speechless as he looked at his father-in-law, his eyes glistening, before he said, “Esau … I even lost my youngest child a few days back, bit by a rattler. Better than most anyone, I know life doesn’t hold any guarantees for us but what chances men like you and me make for ourselves.”

As Amanda came up to stand at her husband’s left side, Burwell held out his big paw to the Negro. “I offer you my hand, Esau Bass. For what miles we got left to go, you can take your meals out of the same pot my family eats from, and throw your blankets down beside my young’uns, outta the rain and cold … from here on clear to the Willamette. Any man Titus Bass would ride with is a man Roman Burwell be proud to ride with too.”

Esau Bass’s eyes moistened as he gazed at Roman and Amanda with gratitude, reaching out to seize the big farmer’s hand. “I-I don’t know quite what to say,” he confessed in a quiet voice. “Ain’t been but three other white men ever give me a chance to make something of myself.”

Roman laid his left hand over Esau’s in a firm grip, saying, “If you’re brave enough to leave behind everything you got here at Fort Hall, the way all the rest of us left behind what we had, I’d be proud to call you my friend from here on out.”

Esau stared down at the big, hard-boned hands that encapsulated his, white enfolding black there in the soft flicker of firelight. His eyes slowly crawled back up to Burwell’s before he said, “Y-you sure you want ol’ Esau come along with you?”

“You have my hand on it.”

Smiling, the Negro blinked his pooling eyes. “I s’pose I better see to what needs lookin’ after back at the fort come morning … seeing how there’s only two days left before I’m bound away for Oregon with you brave folks.”

Times were in a man’s life, days passed so lazily. But on those occasions when he wished to hold the moments and hours prisoner in his hand—to stay time’s relentless march—Titus Bass stood helpless in the face of what lay just ahead.

Two days … all that was left for Titus Bass to romp with his grandchildren in the shade of the trees, or fish the waters of a nearby creek, and with the help of young Flea they made a little time to give Lemuel, Leah, and Annie their first bareback ride on a horse.

Not very long at all for Waits-by-the-Water and Shell Woman to spend some final hours before parting. A happy, expectant air of excitement hung over those last two days as both women struggled not to grow melancholy as the sad hour inexorably approached. While they had not been friends for all that long, they nonetheless shared the same life: married to men who had come west in search of beaver, men who now were groping to find their way in a changing world, men who had fathered their children, fully intending to bring up those half-blood youngsters in some world not quite white. Now it seemed that these two men and their families would be parting for a time. No one knew how long the journey and their stay in Oregon might last, least of all Shadrach.

“If’n there’s a place where ol’ beaver men are layin’ by,” Sweete had explained outside those dirt walls of Fort Hall, “that be Oregon.”

“Fair ’nough to see how it sets by you,” Titus had agreed reluctantly.

“An’ how it sets by Toote.”

Bass had nodded. “Maybeso there’s a new life waiting for you an’ your’n out there with Meek an’ Newell an’ the others too.”

“You tell Gabe I’ll be back,” Shadrach said dolefully. “I’ll be back one day.”

“Two of us keep our eyes on the skyline for you,” Titus assured.

“You goin’ on back to stay at Bridger’s post?”

Shaking his head, Scratch said, “We’ll go back there first, spend a li’l time. Tell Jim ’bout your plans an’ all, afore we start north for Crow country.”

“Winter up, or for good?” Sweete asked. “Where you figger on me findin’ you—”

“If’n you ever come back to the high Stonies?” he interrupted with his question. “Can’t say as where I’ll be come the fall, least off next summer. Just feel the pull to get back north to that country.”

“Country where Waits will birth another scrappy Bass child this winter!”

Titus smiled at that, sensing the warmth spread through his breast in great anticipation for the coming child. “We’ll get Magpie north where I don’t gotta worry ’bout no man stealin’ her away from her mama.”

“Purty as she is, there’ll be a passel of bucks steppin’ up to give you a herd of ponies and a kettle full o’ geegaws for her hand to marry.”

“An’ Flea’s comin’ to the age when both his head an’ heart will start turnin’ from the matters of a boy to the matters of a man,” Scratch remarked.

“You still got Jackrabbit, an’ that baby comin’—both of ’em keep you young for years, Titus!” Sweete cheered.

He looked at his old friend, remembering how sad it must be for Shad, knowing Toote could bear him no more children. Titus laid his hand on Sweete’s wrist, gripping it firmly as he said, “Make the most of these days ahead, Shadrach. These days to come with them two young’uns of your’n, with Shell Woman … and with your ride to Oregon to see what life has to offer you out there.”

Dragging the back of his hand beneath his nose, Sweete said, “Wish’t you was comin’, now that you’re mended up.”

With a grin, Scratch admitted, “If I was to give my wounded arse a long poundin’ on a saddle, it best be on a ride back to that north country, Shadrach. I ain’t got no business goin’ farther west. Amanda’s family an’ the rest of these good folks got ’em a fine pair of pilots gonna lead ’em all the way to the Willamette. No need for me to go on with you.”

“You fixin’ on waiting here till that California bunch comes in?”

Shrugging, he let go of Sweete’s wrist. “I reckon if I was meant to meet up with Hargrove again, we’ll do it somewhere on the road. I don’t need to wait around for it to happen here.”

“How you figger Harris will throw down his float-stick when you run onto ’em?” Shad asked about Hargrove’s pilot.

“’Less that nigger is drunk, I don’t figger Harris is gonna get hisself in the way o’ what’s mine alone to do.”

“You sure you don’t want us wait ’nother day or so till they roll in here,” Shad offered. “It’d give you someone at your back with the two of ’em.”

Peering up at his friend’s crow-footed eyes, Titus said, “You’re the sort of friend the best of men deserve, Shadrach. Don’t know why you ended up my companyero—but I’ll just take it that you’re my friend for a damn good reason.”

“Ever’ man sticks up for his friends the way you do,” Sweete declared, “he deserves to have his back covered by them he’s helped.”

“Don’t fret ’bout lolly gagging ’round here with Roman’s train till Hargrove an’ his bullies get here. I’ve faced worse’n them. ’Sides, Waits and Magpie both purty damn good with a gun—so my women can cover my back if them bastards wanna raise some hell an’ put a chunk under it.”

No more was ever said about it between the two friends.

Then came the gray of that last morning together with family and old friends, before the parting, before some got on with the going on, and the rest got on with the turning back.

“Will you write to us, care of Oregon City?” Amanda asked when the oxen were hitched and the last of the coffee was poured on the breakfast fire. “Tell us what becomes of you and Waits when that child is born?”

“I-I can’t say I will,” he admitted. “Not just ’cause I can’t write—”

Taking his two hands in hers, she pleaded, “Find someone who can do it for you.”

That’s when he confessed, “Never been one to write—not back to my folks in Rabbit Hash.”

Nearby, Roman Burwell stabbed at the soggy, blackened embers at his feet with a thin branch. Wispy puffs of gray smoke rose into the chill, gray air here before the sun thought of appearing. Nearby, Hoyt Bingham was pulling the loud brass trumpet from the back of his wagon.

Amanda quickly glanced at her husband, then told her father, “Both of us, we’ve decided we’ll write to you. To that post on the Yellowstone you told the children stories of. We’ll tell you all ’bout how we make out in our new home. How Esau’s doing with his shop. And Shadrach’s family too. Just tell us who to post it to … where you’ll pick it up in the years to come—”

“No, Amanda,” he said quietly to shush her, squeezing his daughter’s wrists in his roughened hands. “Th-this ’pears to be good-bye for us.”

Her face screwed up in some momentary pain. Eyes pooling, she stared up at him, then said, “Y-you never know about that, Pa. We both thought we’d said our good-byes back in St. Louis when you left Amos Tharp’s place.”

He felt his heart stabbed with regret, a profound remorse for not giving her some hope to hold on to. So he hedged the truth and said, “You’re right, Amanda. Never know when we might run onto one ’nother come the years ahead.”

“So I can write you?”

Titus nodded, smiling behind his tears. “Yes, daughter. You write me much as you an’ them young’uns of yours can. I’ll find me someone can read your letters to me.”

“Where?” she asked breathlessly, using the fingers of one hand to smear the tears from both cheeks.

“Where else, girl? Fort Bridger. Black’s Fork of the Green. Rocky Mountains. Them letters’ll keep with Gabe till I get back round to see him.”

Roman Burwell took three steps and stopped there, towering over his father-in-law. “I can remember that. Black’s Fork. Rocky Mountains.”

“Lemme hear from them children too,” he requested. “As fine a bunch of young folk as there ever was, Amanda. You two made a gran’pa right proud … right proud.”

He turned to Roman, holding out his hand to the man. “I ain’t a prayin’ man—not like no Bible-talker is, Roman Burwell. But, you an’ your family gonna be in my prayers for a long, long time to come.”

Instead of seizing the old trapper’s paw, Roman shoved the arm aside and stepped against Scratch, surprising him as he wrapped up his father-in-law in his big arms. The fierceness of that embrace nearly robbed him of breath and made the hot moisture leak from his tired, red-rimmed eyes.

“I ain’t ever gonna forget you, Titus Bass,” Roman Burwell whispered in the old trapper’s ear. “Don’t know how I ever deserved to marry into such a fine family as yours.”

Then the big farmer inched back a step, and finally held out his hand. “Someday, I’ll figure out a way to properly say thank you for all you done for us—what with Hargrove an’ them men of his—comin’ out to find me and bring me back … doing your best to s-save our little Lucas …”

Titus could see how tough that was for the man to get out. “We all done our best—”

But Roman interrupted him, saying, “For all you done, down to seeing we had these two pilots what’ll get us to Oregon afore the snow flies. I laid in my blankets last night, tossing and rolling—fretting on how I ever could thank you proper.”

This time Titus embraced the farmer, then stepped back and said, “You don’t owe me a thing, Roman Burwell. Knowing how you care for my daughter, how you love her—knowin’ you’re gonna take care of her an’ your young’uns … that’s all the thanks I’ll ever need, son. You’re ’bout the best a father could hope his daughter’d marry to.”

“I-I hope I can live up to that—”

Scratch felt the tears come. “You awready have, son. You awready have.”

Amanda’s children were moving close when Hoyt Bingham trotted up on his horse with that brass trumpet propped against his hip.

“Sun’s coming, Roman!” he announced, pointing at the far ridge.

“You ’bout ready to have a blow on that trumpet?” Burwell asked as he dragged the back of his hard-boned hand under his nose.

Bingham’s eyes quickly surveyed the melancholy group; then he relented and said, “When you’re ready to lead this train to Oregon, Roman.” Then Bingham nudged his horse forward, leaned off to the side, and held down his hand. “Mr. Bass—”

“Name’s Titus,” he interrupted the train’s other captain as they shook.

“Titus, I just want to thank you for all you done for these people, since you’ve been with us. There was a time when I thought the only way we were going to find our way to Oregon City was on pure gumption.”

“You’d done it,” Titus said, his eyes landing on Roman for a moment before he looked back again at the man in the saddle.

“Now we’re sure to do it—sure to get these folks to a new country,” Bingham continued. “And it’s your help going to get us there, same as Mr. Sweete’s and Esau’s too.”

“I had family what needed my help,” he tried to explain as Waits-by-the-Water came up to slip her arm through his.

“Gonies, but I almost forgot! Want you to know just how much the whole train is beholden to you,” Bingham explained. “We ain’t got much extra to our names, but we took up a collection.” He reached under his belt and took out a faded bandanna, its four corners knotted together.

Scratch immediately put up his hand to signal and took a step back, shaking his head. “I ain’t gonna take that, Hoyt. You folks save it till you get to where you’re goin’ … then you give it to Shadrach and Esau.”

Bingham stared at the bandanna, where a few coins were tied. “You’re sure you don’t want this?”

“I ain’t got a need for your money,” he explained as Esau walked up with Sweete and their horses. “Keep it for your pilots. They’re the ones you should pay for leadin’ you to Oregon.”

“A fine idea.” Bingham nodded and stuffed the bandanna knot under his wide belt, then peered down at Esau. “How far downriver till we reach the first ford of the Snake?”

“Less than three miles, by my reckoning,” the tradesman replied.

“Then we’ll likely spend a good piece of the day getting across to the north bank,” Bingham said, shifting in the saddle. His eyes touched Shadrach Sweete. “When you two are done here with your farewells, I’ll blow the trumpet and have Iverson help me line out the wagons for the march downriver to the crossing.”

They watched him turn his horse and move away, leaving behind that group of family and friends, all of them still in that nervous way of folks who don’t know quite how to say what needs saying.

To everyone’s surprise, Esau Bass was the first to make the attempt. He stepped up and held out his strong hand. “Titus, I said my fare-thee-well to you many a year ago … then you went and raised your head back into my life again. So, I’ve got a feeling this can’t be the last I lay eyes on you. If it ain’t out to Oregon, maybe sometime back here in your mountains.”

As he shook with Esau, Scratch pulled the tradesman against him. In that tight hug he whispered against the Negro’s ear, “You won’t ever know how much it means to me for you to lead these people west.”

They parted, still gripping hands. Esau’s eyes crinkled. He looked like a man searching for words to say, till suddenly he asked, “You like my new hat, Titus? Bought it special for the journey.”

He smiled. “A good’un. Gonna keep the sun outta your eyes.”

Nervous as he dropped his hand and took the reins Shad passed to him, Esau cleared his throat and said with difficulty, “Till the next time I see you, Titus Bass.”

“Make the most of your life out to Oregon, Esau,” he declared. “You done a heap for yourself awready.”

Swiping at an eye, the black man turned aside, leading his horse a few paces away as Shadrach edged up. Around the two of them Titus’s children were jabbering and patting the two small Sweete youngsters on the head. Talking in low tones, their Indian mothers held hands, sobbing and wiping tears, touching one another’s faces with wet fingertips in that way of Indian women taking their leave of one another.

“Watch your back trail, Titus Bass,” Shadrach choked.

“You watch your’n, Shadrach Sweete.”

He dropped the reins to his horse and seized Scratch in a last desperate bear hug. “I’ll see you in the mountains again one day,” he whispered in Bass’s ear.

“That’d shine, Shadrach. I’ll lay stock on that, ’cause that’d purely shine.”

When Sweete stepped back, Shell Woman inched away from Waits-by-the-Water, who came to stand beneath Scratch’s arm.

“You fellas take good care of these farmers,” he said, his voice thick and all but clogged. “There’s new homes waitin’ for ’em out yonder.”

Esau swung into the saddle and turned his horse away to follow Shadrach and his family as they mounted up.

Lemuel, Leah, and little Annie suddenly rushed against Titus and Waits, standing by that dead fire pit in a big knot as the five of them embraced.

“Gran’pa—we’ll see you again,” Lemuel said, his eyes glistening.

“I know you will, son.”

Pushing their poke bonnets off their heads so they hung at their backs around their necks, Leah and Annie both surrounded him with their arms at the same time. Little Annie was blubbering and could get nothing said, but Leah’s voice cracked when she spoke, “You made everything a lot better for Mama when Lucas was took from us. I won’t ever forget that about you, Gran’pa.”

He leaned down and kissed his granddaughter on the forehead, brushing some of the sandy-blond hair out of her eyes. “I won’t ever forget ’bout you girls neither. Both of you make your gran’pa real proud. I’m gonna count on you to help your folks ever’ step of the way, and ’specially when you get to Oregon. The same goes for you, Lemuel.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Make your pap an’ mam proud of you, ever’ day.” He patted the girls on the head, then shook hands quickly with Lemuel before the children stepped away with their parents.

Roman waved at the five nearby riders. Bingham raised that tarnished brass horn in the growing light of this new day and blew his martial call. As the two Indian dogs suddenly lunged to their feet, expectant and prepared to move out as they had done many times before, on three sides of Scratch folks began to yell—at their oxen and mules, at their children, or just in an explosion of emotion as they rejoiced to be on their way once more, ready to confront the unmitigated might and power of the great and untamed Snake River. Step by step, mile by mile, day by day, these sojourners would always begin the next eight, twelve, or twenty miles this way. Voices raised as the dust began to stir and animals strained into their harness, lunged against the heavy yokes, whips snapping and milk cows lowing as they were nudged into motion.

“Ho, for Oregon!”

Burwell turned back one last time as he and Lemuel put their stock on the move. He touched the shapeless brim of his hat. Scratch held his arm up, steady and still in that coming light of day. Then the man and boy turned back to their duties, this getting on to Oregon.

Shell Woman was sobbing bitterly now, clutching her youngest against her as their horses moved off. And he felt Waits-by-the-Water quaking against him too as he held her tightly, so tightly against his side. Frozen there on the empty ground between the groups stood the two shaggy dogs, confused why their master was not joining the caravan on its way out of sight, eager to go, prancing nervously, as if seeking to goad him into motion, into catching up with the others.

Knee to knee with Esau, Shadrach reached Bingham and the four other riders, then wheeled his horse around one last time, ripped the big hat from his head, and waved it high at the end of his arm.

Titus felt the big, hot tears spill down his leathery cheeks anew as he yanked the hat from his head too and held it aloft.

“Yes,” he whispered. “I’ll lay eyes on you again, my friend.”

He started to tremble then too, doing his best to contain the grief as he watched till the last wagon disappeared through the curtain of tall green cottonwood. Gone down the Snake. Making for Oregon.

With those two loyal dogs whimpering and whining in confusion, his three children stepped close, silent, while the creaking and groaning, all the noise of animals and those shouting voices, faded from their ears. Eventually swallowed by the distance stretching out between the here and the yet-to-be-seen there.

He waited, listening until all sound had been sucked from that dawn-kissed air. Then Titus Bass felt himself shuddering with a terrible sense of loss and held fast to his woman, all things made endurable with her at his side.