Buffalo Palace (26 page)

“Shit—Ashley didn’t have him a drop of likker!” Hooks groaned.

Cooper slammed a fist down into his palm. “And that son of a honey-fugglin’ booshway give the best dollar for beaver to his own boys!”

“Three dollar the pound he paid ’em!” Tuttle exclaimed.

Hooks bobbed his head, saying, “An’ for us he give only two.”

“Said we was free trappers,” Silas added. “Like we was something what didn’t belong out here. Tol’t us our kind wasn’t bound to no man … so he wasn’t bound to give us no more’n what dollar he damn well felt like giving us!”

“You took two dollar the pound?” Titus asked.

“Hell if we did!” Cooper spouted, his chest puffing. “Our packs was filled with prime plew—seal fat an’ sleek. When he saw what we had to trade, why—that trader’s eyes bugged out to see what we brung us into that Horse Creek camp.”

“Ashley give us four dollar on some!” Tuttle boasted. “An’ on some o’ Cooper’s fur he give Silas five dollar the pound!”

“No shit?” Scratch gasped, going dry-mouthed to think of what his own winter’s catch might bring. “F-five dollar the pound?”

“Damn bet he did,” Tuttle said. “Then we traded for what powder and coffee and sugar we needed to winter up to make it round for next summer—’stead of us having to head east to the Missouri to barter our provisions.”

“Trader says he’s bound to bring him some likker out this year,” Billy announced. “Then this child will have it all—womens and some whiskey!”

“Now, y’ reckon why summer be the only time a mountain trapper got him to celebrate, Scratch?” Cooper asked.

“Ronnyvoo do surely shine,” Tuttle added wistfully himself. “Hope that trader be true at his word—comin’ back this summer.”

Cooper gazed off wistfully. “Ashley took his caravan
off to the north. Headed down the Bighorn to the Yallerstone. On to Missouri to float home to St. Louie.”

Tuttle spoke up. “Seems a likely way for a man to go what has him a lot of furs, Silas.”

Cooper nodded, speaking softly, dramatically. “Might be at that, Bud. Makes all the sense in the world.”

Titus remembered how he had sensed the leap of tiny wings within his stomach when he asked, “We going to ronnyvoo this summer?”

“Come green-up,” Silas assured. “When the plews stop being prime and sleek … four of us take off for Willow Valley,
*
where Ashley promised he’s to show up by the middle o’ summer.”

“You know how to find this Willow Valley?” Bass inquired.

“We’ll find it,” Cooper claimed.

“H-how we know when it gonna be the middle of summer?” Titus asked, anxious. “Ain’t none of us keep no calendar stuffed away in his plunder!”

“Middle of the summer, Scratch,” Tuttle declared with a shrug. “Simple as that for a man to sort out.”

Nodding, Silas said, “Soon’s the high country starts to warm up, it’s getting on to be summer down below. I figger that be the time for us to mosey down outta this beaver land and sashay on over to that Bear River for ronnyvoo.”

“Bear River?”

Tuttle turned to Bass. “Near where them Ashley boys say we’ll run onto Willow Valley.”

“With all our plews!” Billy exclaimed. “Buy us whiskey and womens!”

“But first we gonna trap out what streams there is hereabouts, ain’t we, Silas?” Titus inquired.

“Y’ damn right we will,” Cooper replied. “The way you’re getting the hang of things—why, we gonna pull into ronnyvoo with more plews in our packs than any of them other niggers!”

“Only trouble is,” Tuttle advised sourly, “we hear us that Ashley has him plans to put higher prices on his trade
goods, and he don’t figger to be offerin’ top dollar for our fur no more.”

Hooks moaned, “No more five dollar for prime plew.”

“Why such?” Titus asked.

Cooper nudged his horse up close to Bass. “Y’ ’member that fella Henry we knowed of come upriver with Lisa years ago?”

“Yeah, like I said—hear him and Ashley is partners now.”

“Not no more,” Tuttle explained as Bass was the last to clamber aboard his horse and they all began to move off behind the Ute hunters. “Henry figgers he’s had him enough of the mountains.”

“That cain’t be true,” Bass replied. “T’ain’t possible for a man to get him enough or these mountains out here.”

Cooper said, “True it be: for Ashley’s took him on a new partner. Jedediah Smith. While Ashley goes back to St. Louie to fetch up for trade goods for ronnyvoo, Jed Smith has charge of the hull mountains.”

“So what’s that mean to us come summer when we go off to sell our plews at ronnyvoo?” Titus asked.

“Means ever’ man of us got to make his own choice,” Cooper said with a shrug. “Man’s gotta figger out for his own self if’n he’s better off sellin’ plew at ronnyvoo to them high-pocket St. Louie traders … or he heads down the Big Horn, Yallerstone, and the Missouri on his own to sell what’s his back direct to them other traders at posts along the river.”

“I’ve a good mind to keep my furs for the river traders!” Billy exclaimed. “Damn Ashley and the rest of them thievin’ niggers!”

“That makes two of us, Billy,” Cooper agreed. Then his eyes bounced from Tuttle to Bass. “I’ll just have to wait till summer green-up to see what Ashley’s offerin’ for plew. So come that time, the both of you two’ll have to figure out where your stick floats: mountain trader, or river trader.”

Tuttle glanced quickly at Bass and hurriedly replied, “I’m in with you, Silas. What works out best for your plews works out best for all our plews, I say.”

“What about you, Scratch?” Cooper asked.

“Back there to that village is my first season’s catch,” he started. “Worked hard for it—but I reckon I wouldn’t have near none of it less’n you three come along to show me proper. Titus Bass gonna hang on and ride the whole trail with you … to the river, or to Ashley’s ronnyvoo.”

“That shines, Scratch!” Cooper cheered, his big teeth showing in his black beard.

“But this here ronnyvoo,” Bass replied, “sure wouldst like to see me one of them, one of these days.”

“You will, Scratch,” Hooks said confidently. “Maybe even this summer. Right, Silas?”

“That be the square of it, Titus Bass. Man don’t rightly know in winter just where he’ll be come summer—”

Scratch’s reverie shattered as a shrill scream split the dry, cold air ahead on the narrow trail winding its way out of the trees and into an open glade ringed by steep side slopes, a tumble of boulders, and more lodgepole pine than there were bristles on a strop-hog’s back.

The hair rose at the back of Bass’s neck in that next instant as a pony snorted, other horses whinnied, and some of the Ute cried out. Voices shrill and loud answered, shouting from the trees as enemy warriors appeared from behind the snowcapped rocks all about them. As he watched, mesmerized and frozen, the enemy materialized in a great crescent before the Ute, yanking back the rawhide strings on their short bows, letting fly a first volley of arrows—more than Titus had seen since his first and only Indian fight with the Chickasaw.

Cooper was bellowing as he and Tuttle hit the ground in a leap, smacking their horses in the flanks.

“C’mon, Scratch!” Hooks hollered as he kicked his leg over the neck of his horse and plopped into the snow. The animal screeched, sidestepping, then yanked away from Billy, an arrow quivering high in the animal’s withers.

“C’mon, Billy!” Tuttle hollered a few yards ahead where the shadows split the ground into bars of sun and shadow. “We got us a Injun fight!”

Hooks wheeled for one last look at Bass as Titus
leaped from the saddle. “Skelps! Them’s Injun skelps for this here child!”

As Billy whirled away into the shadows of the lodgepole toward the bright patch of sunlight and snow just beyond where the Ute were milling in disarray as the enemy advanced, an Indian pony suddenly clattered out of the melee toward Bass. Wild-eyed and snorting, its head bobbing as it threaded its way through trees, other animals, and in among the men rushing past it—Titus suddenly saw the Ute warrior still atop the animal, holding on only with the strength of his legs.

Both of the man’s bloody hands were wrapped around the shaft of an arrow, tugging, yanking, pulling with all his might to free it from the back of his throat where it had flown directly into his mouth and buried itself in the base of his tongue.

Titus watched the man weave past atop that careening pony, hearing the warrior’s death-gurgle as the Ute strangled on his own blood.

Bass went cold, shuddering involuntarily as a few arrows hissed into the stand of lodgepole beside him, and some even thwacked into the trees with the splintered crack of winter ice breaking up. Dropping to his knees, he peered ahead at the confusion of bodies darting this way and that among the shadows and brilliant sunlight.

A scream shattered the forest behind him.

Bass whirled, bringing up the rifle, remembering the fleet-footed warriors who had chased him through the Mississippi River woods, all the way back to the river-men’s Kentucky boat.

He had no time to think. Barely enough to jerk back the hammer to full-cock and pull hard on the set trigger before yanking back on the front trigger. He hadn’t aimed. Everything done on feel, impulse—as the enemy, with the top half of his face painted in black, leaped through the shadows, across that last five yards, a huge club circling over his head, sunlight glinting off the three sharp knife blades swinging down from the sky toward Bass’s head.

For a moment more the black face screamed, then went silent, contorting as the warrior fell, skidding to his knees. It was as if the lower strings of a marionette had
been suddenly cut as the warrior crumpled—yet with that headlong motion his right arm continued to bring that war club forward, released at the end of his arm: whirling onward with a dull hum.

Glinting. Flashing in the sun.

On instinct Bass brought up his rifle at the last moment, ducking aside as the club tumbled into him. Its long handle struck the rifle with a wooden clunk, and the blades tumbled on past.

Slicing.

He grunted as he fell, rolling onto his shoulder—finding the fall hurt as he spilled onto his belly in the snow. Afraid, remembering that his rifle was empty, Bass rocked onto his knees. Allowing the rifle to fall out of his hands, he turned to find the warrior spilled facedown in the snow. Titus yanked the pistol from his sash, cocked and pointed it, trembling, at the fallen enemy.

“Scratch!”

Whirling about on his knees in the deep snow, Bass saw Hooks thirty yards away, ramming home a ball, seating it deep against the powder and breech of his rifle. Racing halfway between the two white men, a warrior came to a halt in a spray of snow, went to one knee, and brought the string back on his bow as it came up to his cheek in one smooth, swift, blurred arc of motion.

Instead of firing, Bass dropped onto his shoulder—his mind suddenly iced with hot nausea as he rolled, then came back up on his hip and brought the pistol up, aimed at the warrior moving in a blur to pull a second arrow from the same hand that clutched the bow.

Jerking back on the pistol’s trigger, he felt the weapon jump in his hand. A great gray puff of smoke issued from the short muzzle as Bass swapped the pistol to his left hand and with his right pulled the last weapon he could use for his defense.

With the knife held out before him he leaped upon the bowman who clutched his upper arm—a red, glistening ooze seeped between his fingers as his face showed surprise the moment the white man collided with him.

Titus seized a hunk of the Indian’s hair in his left hand, drew the skinning knife back at the end of his fully extended right arm, and slashed downward with all the
fury he could muster. It hurt so to feel the warrior wrenching away from his left arm … then suddenly his right hand felt warm. Flecks of warmth spat against Bass’s face as the blood gushed.

No longer able to hold the struggling warrior with his weakened left arm, Titus flung the Indian backward as the enemy quivered and thrashed—his throat slashed so completely that his head keeled to the side, nearly severed from his body.

“That’s the way to shine, nigger!”

Bass jerked up with a feral growl, finding Silas Cooper scuttling toward him out of the shadows. Behind the tall man there were muffled shouts and the whinny of horses. Cooper went to his knees beside Titus.

“That red nigger’s skelp is yours, Scratch!” he cried out in exultation, slapping Bass on the back.

Wincing in pain, Titus grunted as icy shards filled the base of his skull, Sent shooting stars exploding behind his eyelids as he struggled to maintain consciousness.

“Damn nigger!” Cooper’s voice called out above him. “Scratch’s hurt. Billy!”

For some time Titus struggled to keep from losing his breakfast, then remembered they hadn’t really stopped for a noonday meal. Only a little yellow bile spilled up as his empty stomach revolted and he retched on the snow.

“You’ll be awright,” Hooks was saying over him somewhere.

Then someone was wiping cold snow on his face. Bass’s eyes fluttered half-open so that he could look up into Billy’s face.

Of a sudden, there beside Hooks’s hairy face, was Turtle’s, both of them staring down at Bass like masks suspended in the air above him.

“It’s over, Scratch,” Bud confided softly.

As much as he tried to listen to the silence of that rocky lodgepole clearing, Titus couldn’t hear anything. Maybe the silence meant that it really was over.

“Looks to be the greenhorn got two his own self!” Cooper suddenly bawled in triumph, appearing behind the other two, who continued to stare down at Bass. “How’s he gonna fare, Billy?”

“Get me his coat off and I can tell you better, Silas.”

They yanked and jerked, pulling his belt and sash off, then parted the blanket coat so that they could drag it down the left arm enough to look at the shoulder wound.

“It’s deep,” Hooks said solemnly.

“But clean enough,” Tuttle added. “She’ll knit up in time.”

Bass’s eyes opened now and then, fluttering in pain as the others prodded and pulled; then a great pressure was added to the source of his pain. He closed his eyes and wished they would just cut the arm off—it hurt so damned much.