Buffalo Palace (5 page)

The two of them settled out front beneath the narrow porch awning on half-log stools, leaning back against the rough-log wall chinked with Missouri clay, and slowly sucked down more than one bowlful apiece that evening. While the settler dragged out as much news as he could about what all was happening downriver in St. Louis and beyond, Titus pried out as much information as he could on what lay upriver.

“Fort Osage be a fella’s next stop,” the man declared.
“South bank. But—you cain’t count on soldiers and folks allays being there.”

“They closed the fort down?”

“Not all the time.”

“How far?” Bass inquired.

With a shrug he answered, “Only been up that way once afore. Can’t really say. It’s a piece.”

“How many days you figure?”

“You ain’t got no ragtag along and can keep your horses on the scat—I’d figure a little better’n a week.”

“That long?” And he watched the settler nod, drawing on his pipe, then dropped his eyes to peer into the bowl the way the man did after nearly every puff.

“Fine tobaccy, this,” the man offered after a moment of silence between them.

“You know anything of what’s north of Osage?”

“Next place be Atkinson’s post. If, like you said, you’re hankering to foller the Platte west, I hear that’s where you pick up the river what’ll take you all the way to them far mountains.”

The sound of that distant country made his mouth dry then and there. It seemed like he’d journeyed so damned far already. Fifteen winters it was—as far back as 1810 … as far east as Kentucky in the great bend country of the Ohio River. And lately it seemed everyone he ran into was telling him he’d only begun his journey. From what he’d seen, maybeso those folks were right.

Back east on the Ohio and the great Mississippi, in those forests and along the trails and traces—things weren’t really all that spread out and far apart. Even in traveling the wilderness along the Natchez Trace, a man knew he would come across a stand—a wayside inn—with some frequency. But from what he had seen out here already … not only was a man running out of folks and settlements, it was as if the land itself damn well seemed to be growing all the bigger on him the farther west he set his feet down.

While the sky domed overhead, endlessly stretching to the western horizon, the country itself he was crossing appeared to swell with every mile he put behind him. And more than once he had come near scaring himself to the marrow, just to think that by some underhanded jigger-pokey
magic the land puffed itself up beneath him like a lister, making it so those far mountains arose farther and farther away the faster he rode to find them, the harder he yearned to have that first glimpse of them.

“Yes,” Titus finally answered the settler, and stared down into the bowl of his pipe. His tobacco had gone out, and it had grown quieter inside the main house behind them as well as the children’s quarters nearby, connected to the squat cabin by a roofed dogtrot.

With a sigh the settler rocked forward and knocked his pipe against the side of his nankeen britches slick and shiny with age and wear. A small black dollop dropped from his clay pipe bowl. Then he peered squarely at the visitor. “I don’t s’pose there’s any use of a feller to try talkin’ you into staying put right here, is there?”

He looked at the plea in the man’s eyes for a polite moment before he answered. “No. I’m sorry. Was a time I figgered there’d be nothing for me but to stay on my own place back to Kentucky. But—I found out I ain’t the kind to stay on.”

With sad resignation the man nodded and said, “Coulda used a hand. You look to be a likely sort for work.”

Titus watched the settler twist and turn the small clay pipe in his big hands, the dirt scored into every wrinkle and crevice the way indigo ink would highlight a seafarer’s tattoo. “I’m sure the woman’s trying to give all she can.”

“It was hard enough at times afore my brother passed on,” he admitted. “Yes—I know Edna’s trying. Just that … this is a man’s work and she ain’t got no business …” Then his voice faded off as he looked up at Bass’s eyes and saw no softening there. “God knows it ain’t a woman’s lot to do what that woman does on this place.”

“She don’t seem the sort to shy at hefting her share of the load.”

With a doleful wag the settler explained, “Edna ain’t never shied away from her share of the work.”

“I figure she does what she has to for her young’uns,” Titus replied, whacking his pipe bowl against the sole of his worn boot.

“Time and again I tried to send her and them all back to her family.”

After waiting while the settler paused, he asked, “And?”

“And she wouldn’t have nothing of it. Said this was where my brother counted on setting down roots and making his stand. Said that’s why she was staying. Said she would stay close by where he was planted—right out yonder we laid him … and she wanted to be planted right next to him come her time to pass on to the great by-and-by.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Last summer,” he answered quietly. Then he wagged his head and stared at the tiny pipe in his big, rough hands. “She stayed with him all those days till the end while my woman saw to the young’uns. Then of a early morning when Heber died, just afore sunup, Edna cleaned him, put some fresh clothes on him while I dug his grave—and we buried him that very day. But what got to me was the way she shuffled the kids off to the house here when we was walking back from the grave. Told ’em to go with their auntie and mind her. Said she had work to be doing out with me.”

“That when she went to work with you in the fields yonder?”

“The very afternoon we buried my brother. She went in and put on a old pair of his britches, cinched ’em up with some twine, and told me we had us work to be doing out to the fields. And … she ain’t grieved a bit since then, what I know of.”

“She ain’t cried none?”

“Not since she walked away from Heber’s grave.”

“That’s a strong woman,” Titus ventured, not sure if it were strength or not that kept a body from grieving.

“Thought so my own self at first,” the man replied eventually. “But now … I just wonder if she ain’t in trouble.”

“What you mean—trouble?”

Rocking forward on his half-log stool again, the settler rose to his feet and kneaded the back of one thigh before he spoke. “A body’s gotta grieve the loss of a love,
Mr. Bass. Edna ain’t yet grieved proper. She holds it all in—no telling how it’ll eat away at her.”

At last Titus quietly offered, “A strong woman like that—one what helps you to the fields and pulls her own weight, never asking for any slack in the rope—she’ll come through her grieving in her own way. And she’ll be fine.”

He looked at Bass a moment, then replied, “I ain’t got no choice but to trust in just that, mister. Hope is that Edna will grieve in her own way, and not keep it all tied up inside her like a bag full of knots.”

Titus watched the man turn and move off, stopping at the doorway.

The settler asked, “You’ll make do over there at the lean-to you picked out for yourself?”

“I’ll be fine. Thankee much.”

“I’m up afore light, Mr. Bass. So I’ll see we have coffee together afore you pull out.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

For several minutes Titus waited there on the porch, listening to the soft sounds of people moving quietly about inside the main cabin, thinking he might have himself another bowl of that tobacco—then the place got quiet and he decided to be off to quiet himself. He slowly rocked himself up off the stool and stood to regard the stars dusting the sky above him, just beyond the edge of the slightly sagging porch roof.

The last Titus remembered was that he had crossed the rutted, hoof-pocked yard and squatted in the dim starlight below the slant of his log and brush lean-to, yanked off his boots, then kicked the blankets over himself and laid his head atop his coat he had folded over his old saddle. Closing his eyes, he faded off to sleep thinking about that far land where the mountains scraped the sky and the buffalo blackened the earth.

“Shhh,” the voice whispered to him in his dream. “Lemme in there with you. It’s cold out here.”

Beyond the lip of the shelter, the sky still hung inky black as he blinked his eyes open, sensing the hands lifting the blankets, fluffing them back over them both as the press of a body came against his. His hand tightened on
the pistol between his knees as he came more awake. Rigid and wary.

“Lay still,” the woman’s voice husked against his ear. “We both stay warmer that way.”

Swallowing hard, Bass lay as still as a stalk of grass on a windless day, while he felt her screwge herself against his back, draping an arm over him. Her gasps of breath teased the long hair curled at the collar of his linen shirt, warming him.

“Ed-Edna?”

As quickly as he uttered her name, the woman brought her hand up and laid two fingers on his mouth.

“It’s me. Now shush an’ lay quiet aside me.”

He was afraid he already knew the answer to his question before he asked it. “What you doing here?”

“I’ll swear. Back to Bailey Henline’s place in Franklin you didn’t strike me as a man so thick in the head not to know what I’m here for.”

“I s’pose I ain’t so thick I can’t figger things out in the middle of the night,” he whispered, starting to roll on his side toward her. But the woman clamped her arm around Titus, stopping him. He lay perfectly still for a moment, then said quietly, “Long as I can remember, you womenfolk been the biggest of mystery to me. I don’t mind owning up to this here being a mystery to me too.”

For a long time she did not speak. Then, “It’s been a long, long time since’t I laid with a man.”

That sweet tang of prickly anxiety rose in him like an awakening. He even felt the stir in his flesh as her fingers came away from his lips and traced their way down his chest to his belly, where she pulled and jerked at the tail of his shirt to free it from his button-front leather britches. As her fingers lightly brushed across the skin of his bared belly, Bass sensed himself growing. Enjoying it. Yet afraid of what was to come.

“We ought’n not t-to …,” he started with a bit of a stammer as her fingers no longer stroked his skin lightly but began to knead the flesh and muscle at the waistband of his britches. “I c-can’t.”

“Why?” she whispered huskily in his ear. “Ain’cha been with a woman?”

“I have—”

“You ain’t no boy,” she interrupted, pulling her hand away suddenly. “Could tell that right off there in Bailey Henline’s store. You had a look about you. I knowed you was the kind what’d had you many a woman. Likely a lot of whores too.”

He felt her shuffling the blankets behind him, tugging more at his shirt until she had the back tail out and yanked up nearly to his shoulders.

“Ain’t gonna deny none of that,” he answered at last.

“But I never took you for the kind what didn’t know the difference twixt a whore … and a woman in need.”

“In … in need?”

“Bad in need of you,” Edna answered. “Been a long time, Mr. Bass. And though the thought’s crossed my mind a time or two, I ain’t about to go to my own husband’s brother with my … need.”

As she said it, the woman came against him once more with her body heat. And this time he was sure he sensed more of that warmth, now that she had raised his shirt—now that she had her breasts pressed against his bare back.

“Someone gonna hear us,” he whispered, suddenly aware of how quiet the night had become around them. “Your young’uns. Maybe your brother—”

“No one gonna hear us,” she breathed at his ear, reaching around him again and taking one of his hands in hers. “Less’n you’re one what likes to scream when he climbs atop a woman.”

“I ain’t … no, never did I scream.”

“Just shush then and feel what I’m giving you this dark, cold night.”

Her hand tightened on his, guiding it over his hip to hers. Surprised, he froze the briefest of moments, finding her hip bare. Leading his hand up and down her thigh, then sweeping it back over her buttock, Edna began to groan, low and feral. Her hand left his as Titus continued to explore on his own.

“You didn’t wear nothing at all?” he asked.

Huskily, she replied, “Just a ol’ coat I shimmied out of.”

By now he felt himself become fully erect as she grabbed hold of his hand again and led it directly between
her thighs, locking it where she was the warmest. He sensed a shudder shoot through the woman as his fingers explored, finding her moist.

“Y-you’re a widow woman—”

“That don’t mean nothing.”

Starting to roll toward him, Edna immediately had her fingers at the buttons of his britches, sitting up slightly so she could get both hands working to yank at the front of his pants. The blankets slid off her shoulder. In the dim starshine he got his first good look at her bare neck, a shoulder where the coat had slipped down her arm, and then her breasts.

Her hand hungrily grabbed his rigid flesh as the front of his britches opened. Up and down she toyed with him, first squeezing about as hard as she could, then lightly brushing a single finger up, then down. “You’re ready for me, ain’cha, Mr. Bass?”

“Get out of your coat,” he ordered hungrily, his eyes flicking a last time across the starlit yard toward the small buildings. There were no second thoughts now.

“Just soon’s I get you outta your shucks,” she said, yanking, pulling, tearing at his canvas pants.

At the same time, he was tearing his shirt the rest of the way over his head and off his arms, flinging his clothing to the side in a careless heap.

As she leaned back to slip off the coat that lay open, he leaned forward, taking one of her breasts into his mouth and began to kiss, fondle, suck. A tremor shot through her body and she moaned once more, hurriedly shaking the coat from her arms. The instant it was off, she had a hand encircling his rigid flesh once more while at the same time collapsing to her back beside him there.

He found himself between her legs as he brought the blankets over them, the cold night wind sharp as freshly stoned knife against their flesh. Impatiently, Edna guided him with the one hand, her other insistent, pressing at the small of his back, urging him forward. After several moments of lunging against her in vain, Edna’s warmth eventually wrapped itself around him as he drove himself up to the hilt.