Buffalo Palace (19 page)

“You’re wolf bait now for sure, pilgrim!” cried the second man; then he let out a bloodcurdling scream, dragging his knife from its scabbard and shaking it in Bass’s face.

Titus’s eyes quickly shot to where his rifle stood against a tree, and where the pistol lay beyond it. These had to be white men, he told himself as he ran his tongue around the inside of his dry mouth, suddenly surprised that it had the texture of sand. After all, they spoke his tongue, didn’t they?

Then it struck him: Why, he hadn’t heard the sound of a human voice other than his in … in a damned long time. Damn, but why was these white fellas in Injun clothes?

“How—howdy, fellas … whyn’t all of you g’won over there by my fire and have yourselves a sit,” he called out in a croak, the words emerging squeaky from that dry throat.

The tall hooded one stretched out his arms, a gesture that immediately slowed the two wild dancers. With a booming voice he said, “By damn, boys—’pears we got us an invite to help that son of a bitch rock his horse to sleep!”

“You sure he ain’t no dangerous Injun killer, Silas?” the third voice finally asked.

The second man’s face lit up with mirth as he asked,
“How the bejesus can this pilgrim be a Injun killer when he ain’t got him no gun?”

Again Bass glanced at his weapons across the small clearing, there among his bedding. All he had here at hand was the belt knife.

“He won’t do us no harm,” the nearest one said inside the shadow of his hood.

Suddenly there was the face of the man who had spoken. Bass jerked his head up, watching the figure step closer, yanking back on the hood to his blanket coat then and there in the murky shadows as snow fell into the camp clearing. Damn near as tall as any man he’d ever seen, damn near as big as Hezekiah Christmas. And Hezekiah was the biggest man he’d ever laid his mortal eyes on.

“Don’t figger we need to cover him no more, eh?” the second man said as he stepped out of the shadows no more than twenty feet away.

Then some needles snapped behind Titus. He twisted his head around to watch the third man advance into the camp clearing.

“He ain’t got a gun on him,” this third one said. “Don’t figger he’s about to kill none of us by axe-see-dent.”

The big man in the center came a step closer. Titus studied the way he carried his rifle captured in the crook of his left arm and a pistol ready, there in his right hand. Now the tall one began to wave that pistol at the second man.

“Billy—punch that fire so I can warm my ass.”

“Helluva way to go and wake a man up,” Bass grumbled, angry at himself for feeling embarrassed at being caught flat-footed and unarmed.

The tall man watched his eyes flick over to the rifle again. “One thing y’ll learn, son—y’ best keep your guns at your side. No matter you’re taking a shit”—and that made the second man guffaw with a great gust of laughter—“or y’ be rolled up with nothing more’n your own dreams to keep y’ warm at night.”

“Just who … who the blue blazes are you?” Bass inquired.

Pounding the pistol barrel against his chest, the big man replied, “Me? Why, hell—my name’s Silas Cooper.”

“He’s the big bull in this lick, he is—that Silas. Yessirreebob!” the second man said, his head nodding in emphasis.

Cooper came a bit closer, his eyes narrowing. “So who might be you?”

Bass’s eyes went back to Cooper’s. “Titus … Titus Bass.”

“Where you come from?” the third man demanded as he came around to a spot where Bass could see him without turning his head. He looked a tarnal mess with his long, unkempt beard.

“St. L-louis,” he answered with that croaky voice.

“This here’s Bud Tuttle,” Cooper introduced the third man, pointing at him with his pistol.

“Ain’t my first name, but everyone calls me Bud.”

“’Cause he don’t like Hyrum none!” the second man gushed with a wild giggle.

“That’s right,” Tuttle replied. “My name’s Bud.”

Just as Titus began to nod his head to the third man, ready to ask the last man his name, Cooper began to move off to the right, stuffing his pistol into the wide, colorful sash he had tied about his waist. The tall man asked, “How long y’ been up here in these parts, Titus Bass?”

“Since end of summer.”

“That long, eh?” Cooper asked as he neared the mare’s rear flanks, sniffing, wrinkling his nose up at the strong stench.

“Ain’t had you much luck trapping, have you?” the second man asked.

“Was going out this morning—when the horse here was took with sand colic,” Bass explained.

“Damnation,” Cooper said with a sigh as he settled some distance back from the horse’s tail and studied the ground around the mare’s hind end.

“What is it, Silas?” Tuttle asked.

“G’won now, Billy,” and he looked up at the second man. “Y’ get yourself introduced proper, then get that fire punched.”

With an open-faced grin that second man snagged the fur cap off his head and bowed slightly from the waist,
showing that he kept his long hair tied back in a long queue. He flashed a handsome, gap-toothed smile, announcing, “Name’s Hooks, mister. Billy Hooks.”

“So now y’ know us all. Silas be my name,” Cooper repeated as he looked up from the moist ground he had been inspecting near the horse’s flank, “that’s Billy y’ just met, and him over there is Bud.”

“Pleased,” Bass replied, reaching up to scratch at the incessant itch there at his collar, “pleased to meet you all.”

“Bet y’ are,” Cooper growled. “Better us’n some half-starved red niggers out for hair or coup.”

“K-koo?”

The tall man slipped his wide-brimmed felt hat off the back of his head, grabbed a gob of his own long black hair in one hand, and pulled it straight up while his other hand whipped out his belt knife and dragged the back of the blade showily across his throat—while he made a scratchy, wheezing sound.

“Meaning the red bellies gonna slit your goddamned pilgrim, idjit, pork-eater throat, the sonsabitches would,” Silas grumbled, stuffing the knife away and pulling the hat back over his head.

“I … I don’t eat no pork,” Titus explained sheep-faced. “Don’t eat no more Ned.”

“Then y’ have the makings of a good man, Titus Bass,” Cooper declared with a sudden smile. “There be enough god-blamed Frenchie pork-eaters in these here mountains awready!”

Billy gushed with that easy laughter of his as he came over from the fire to squat near Titus, grinning as if he’d just made himself a new friend for life.

“What you think, Silas?” Turtle asked as he came up to stand behind Cooper, peering down at the horse’s hind end.

“Black water—ain’t no two ways about it,” Silas clucked, then shook his head one time for emphasis.

“B-black water?” Titus repeated. “Nawww. She’s just got her a li’l case of colic. Likely it be the sand colic—”

“I said it was black water, Titus Bass,” Cooper snapped, rising to point down at the remains of the dark,
murky liquid the mare had spewed on the ground behind her. “Come see here for your own self.”

“Ah right. Black … black water,” Titus repeated, not daring to move, not daring to show Cooper he doubted him. He felt cold in his belly of a sudden. Looking down into the mare’s one eye staring wildly up at him. If it was black water, then there wasn’t much a man could do. Not much time neither. “I was … hoping it was the colic.”

“Bet y’ walked her, didn’t you?” Cooper asked.

How helpless he felt, maybe having a hand in killing his only horse. “Yes … well—I thought it was the colic!”

“It’s awright, son,” Silas said, suddenly sounding almost fatherly so soon after he had been downright snarly. “Most folks don’t know how to tell the black water until it’s too late.”

“Too late?”

“Listen, Titus Bass,” Cooper said as he came over to kneel beside Titus, “this critter’s in some terrible pain. And when a body’s in pain—it’s allays best to put it right outta its misery, ain’t it?”

Lord, he fought not to sob, especially when Cooper leaned over to put an arm around his shoulder, just the way his grandpap used to do. Bass could feel the tears sting as they started to well in his eyes.

“Y’ll get along just fine—won’t he, Bud?” Silas offered.

“That’s right, Titus,” Tuttle replied, pushing some of his long sandy-blond hair back out of his eyes. “Where’s your other horses?”

“Other … other horses?” Bass asked dumbly.

Cooper asked, “Y’ got mules?”

“I ain’t got no other’ns.”

Billy shrieked with sudden unrestrained belly laughter, clamping a hand over his mouth when Cooper shot him a stern, disapproving look.

Then Silas was tugging Titus up. “Bud, gimme a hand getting Titus up on his feet. Here, son—that’s it, Titus … y’ don’t wanna go down like your only horse there, now—do you?”

As much as Titus tried to think of speaking, of what
to say, of what the hell to do, his mouth just wagged wordlessly.

“Y’ mean to bald-face tell me you come out here to the mountains with one horse only?” Cooper inquired.

“Started off with two from St. Louie,”

Tuttle asked, “So what happed to the other’n?”

“Lost it—crossing the Platte.”

“Spring flood?” Billy asked, that big grin brightening his face.

With a shake of his head Titus shrugged and replied, “Don’t know—bottom just gone out from under us and we … this mare and me, we barely swum ourselves out.”

“Y’ ever find the other horse?”

He looked at Cooper and nodded. “Dragged the saddle off’n it. Was a Injun pony.”

“Injun pony?” Tuttle asked, concern on his face. “What sort of Injun pony?”

“Don’t rightly know. Just that it come down from Fort Kiowa with a friend of mine.”

“Friend?” Billy asked.

“Isaac Washburn. The Injun pony was his.”

“And this here mare’s yours?” Silas said.

Bass looked down at the horse. She flailed that rear leg about again, only this time with a much more feeble movement. “She was give me by a man in St. Louis.”

Cooper flung his long arm around Titus’s shoulder, saying, “A good horse this was, Titus Bass, weren’t it?”

“She got me here—all the way here.”

Then he felt what Cooper suddenly pressed into his belly. Slowly he looked down and saw the pistol pushed against his blanket coat. Fear knotted cold in his gut.

“Take it, Titus Bass,” Cooper demanded. “Finish off the god-blamed animal, y’ idjit. Cain’t y’ see she’s in some awful pain?”

“F-finish?”

“Shoot her!” Billy cried. “She’s dying anyways—so, shoot her now!”

“I … ain’t there nothing can be done?” he begged of Cooper, turning toward the tall man, trying to push away the pistol the tall man shoved into his belly.

“Not when a critter’s gone and got black water,”
Cooper said quietly, his big, beautiful eyes gone sad and limpid. “Once a horse goes down with black water—that critter ain’t never getting up on his legs again. Y’ cain’t be squampshus about it. Time for y’ to do the decent thing, Titus Bass.”

“I can’t shoot her,” he pleaded. “Don’t have me no other horse. This here’s the only one—”

“Gimme the goddamned pistol, y’ weasel-stoned pup!” Cooper growled angrily as he yanked the weapon from Bass’s hand and dragged back the hammer.

“No!” Titus bellowed, hurling himself at the man’s long, powerful arm. “No—don’t you see if it’s to be done, I’m the one gotta do it?”

Cooper looked down at him with those long-lashed, limpid eyes of his that Bass was sure could hypnotize lesser men. “That’s right, Titus Bass. Now you’re showing a lick of good sense: see that you’re the one what’s gotta do it—if’n you’re man enough.”

“The nigger ain’t man enough!” Billy cried, sidestepping a little jig in eager anticipation. “Ain’t man enough!”

“Shuddup, Billy!” Tuttle ordered. “Leave ’im be.”

With gratitude Bass glanced at Bud Tuttle and found there in the man’s homely face something that said he understood Bass’s reluctance—something that said he just plain understood.

“I’ll do it … if’n there’s no other way,” Bass reluctantly said.

Cooper and the others backed away a few steps. Then Silas said, “She’s been good to y’. Now’s time for y’ to return that good, Titus Bass. Take her outta her misery.”

With two trembling hands he pulled the hammer back to full-cock, brought the muzzle down to aim at a spot behind her ear.

“Y’ might miss there,” Cooper advised. “Go up on her head,” and he jabbed with one long finger at a spot midway between the eyes—up between the eyes and the ears. “Horse got it a little brain … y’ don’t put that ball into it just right, y’ gonna cause the mare all the more pain, Titus Bass.”

Still trembling, he moved the muzzle to that new target, trying to hold it on the spot Cooper described.

“Nawww—hold it again’ her head,” Silas instructed. “Now, y’ want one of us to go and do—”

“No! I’ll … I’ll do it,” he interrupted, forcing down the stinging bile that gathered at the back of his throat as he brought the muzzle squarely against the mare’s forehead. Titus glanced one more time into that one wild, bloodshot, pain-crazed eye, then closed both of his and pulled back on the trigger.

The pistol leaped in his hand, and he sensed the immediate splatter of warm blood across his bare flesh as he keeled backward with instant regret—not wanting to look, not daring to open his eyes until he had turned away. Bass held the pistol out at the end of his arm, loosely in his grip—hoping one of them would take it.

Cooper swept the weapon out of the hand before it dropped, looping his other arm over Bass’s shoulder. He almost cooed, saying, “Y’ done good by her, Titus Bass. I allays said a man’s only as good as he is to his animals. And y’ done right by your mare.”

“Tough thing you did—but the right thing,” Tuttle added.

“Weren’t nothing to laugh at, Titus,” Billy said. “Sorry I am I laughed at you.”

“The world’s a merry place to Billy Hooks,” Silas replied. “Y’ just gotta understand him is all, Titus Bass.”

He peeled himself from under Cooper’s arm and trudged over to his rekindled fire. There he squatted on his hands and knees, feeding the coals until he had more warmth from the flames.

“Whyn’t you two go fetch up the animals?” Cooper instructed somewhere behind him.