Buffalo Palace (7 page)

As he tried to study the trio, Titus could hear their talk, three distinct voices—but could not make out any words at this distance across the muddy, runoff swollen river. As the three turned the northeast corner of the stockade, Bass realized they all wore the same pants and ankle-high, square-toed boots.

“Soldiers.” Both dust and sweat stained the light-blue wool of those britches as the men turned through the open gate and disappeared from view. Almost as quickly the fat man reappeared, dragging behind him a small two-wheeled cart with a long double-tree attached to the front. It bounced and rumbled across the rutted, pocked ground as he turned the corner of the stockade, headed back toward the timber where the trio had emerged just minutes before.

For some time Titus sat there thinking on it, wondering if these three might well try to keep him from pushing on west to the mountains. At least that’s what Isaac Washburn had proclaimed last year when each night they had laid their plans for their journey to the Rockies. From the Missouri River country on west across the plains, Gut had explained, a man must either be a dragoon stationed at one of the riverside posts, or he had to belong to a licensed fur brigade sent upriver by one of the big companies being outfitted and setting off every spring from St. Louis these past few years.

For the longest time the trade in western furs had all but died off—what with the trouble the British raised among the upriver tribes during the years they waged war on the young country of America; not to mention the losses of men Manuel Lisa suffered at the hand of the Blackfeet high in the northern Rockies. Wary at best, the St. Louis merchants had pulled in their horns, licked their wounds, and confined themselves to doing what
trading they could with the Sauk, Fox, Omaha, and the other more peaceable tribes along the lower river.

Then three years ago the Americans recruited by Ashley and Henry again flung themselves at the upper river, against the distant and hostile tribes, against that fabled land so rich in thick, prime fur.

But Titus Bass wasn’t about to join the army—not going to cut wood or dig slip-trench latrines at one of these river posts—hell, no, he wouldn’t do that and be forced to gaze out longingly at all that expanse of open wilderness he would never get to see as long as he was a soldier.

And he sure as hell wasn’t the sort to be a joiner either. Not about to sign on with one of those brigades that promised each man a rifle, traps, and two meals a day … and in return each dumb brute must promise the muscles of his back, his arms and legs, for the grueling labor of warping and cordel ling laden keel boats against the fickle Missouri’s mighty current. No, sir. All that talk he overheard in the St. Louis watering holes and knocking shops sure didn’t sound like much of a life to him: taking commands from some smooth-faced army officer, or from a slick-tongued fur trader bound to grow rich off the labors of others.

Perhaps if he rested right here in the brush and tall grass, watching the small post across the river for a while longer, he might learn for sure if more than those three were quartered at the fort. After all, there were five horses grazing outside the stockade walls. And then he chuckled, imagining the sight of that big-bellied one bouncing along at an ungainly gallop upon one of those horses.

A moment more and Bass slapped his knee, wagging his head for his shortsighted stupidity. As well as he knew horses, Titus chided himself for not seeing it earlier. Those sure as hell weren’t dragoon animals meant to be ridden. They were wagon stock: thick-hipped and high-backed. Which meant this place was peopled with foot soldiers.

It wasn’t long before the thin trail of smoke from that lone chimney became a thick column. One of those soldiers had punched life back into their fire.

That’s when Titus noticed the angle of the shadows
and looked into the west to measure the descent of the sun. Those soldiers were done with their fatigue for the day and were preparing their supper. Just thinking of it made his stomach grumble. More than a week and a half ago he had left Boone’s Lick and Arrow Rock behind. He remembered now the last meal cooked by the hand of a woman. She had warmed his belly that evening and, in the darkness of that same night, come to warm his blankets. How he wished Edna Mae well in her search for a husband: a man for her bed, and a father for her children.

Then he gazed at the river, studying the far landing constructed of thick poplar and oak pilings buried into the bank, where river travelers would tie up their craft. To one of the pilings were lashed three crude pirogues carved out of thick-trunked trees, each of them bobbing against the wharf and each other with a rhythmic, dull clunk as the Missouri pushed on past. On the grassy bank itself lay two canoes, upside down, their bellies pointing at the cloudless afternoon sky.

He could well slip on around the post himself, unseen by those soldiers. But sooner or later, Titus realized, he would have to cross the Missouri. Once she pointed her way north—he would have to make his way over to the yonder bank anyway. For more minutes as the sun slipped closer to the far edge of the earth, he brooded on it—whether or not to chance these soldiers and this post. Or to pass them on by.

He racked his memory of all those sober or whiskey-sodden nights spent with Isaac Washburn. Besides Fort Kiowa, where old Hugh Glass had crawled after being mauled by the she-grizz, the only fort his recollections came up with was the one Gut spoke of near the mouth of the Platte—the one called Atkinson. For the life of him, Titus couldn’t remember the old fur trapper warning him of any others. Atkinson was the one Gut vowed they would give wide berth as they made their way west.

But this stockade—what the hell was this post sitting here of a sudden on the south bank of the Missouri?

As the shadows stretched long and the afternoon breeze cooled against his shaggy cheek, Titus wrestled with it the way he had manhandled a piece of strap iron at
Hysham Troost’s forge: all fire and muscle. And as the day grew old and evening beckoned out of the east, Bass owned up to what he’d been hankering to do almost from the moment he first set eyes on that stockade across the river.

“Sergeant!”

At that cry from the south shore Bass’s head bobbed out of the muddy water, his eyes blinking, immediately landing on the open gates, where one of the soldiers stood turned half-around to hurl his voice into the stockade.

“Pull, girl!” he called out to the mare dragging him against the Missouri’s strong current. He gripped her tail as firmly as he had ever held on to a woman at that moment of blissful union. “That’s it—pull!”

As he did his best to hold the rifle high overhead and out of the water, the mare fought the strong current, pulling them slowly toward that south bank where a second soldier appeared, joining the first. Eventually the big-bellied one hurried up to complete the trio about the time the Indian pony’s hooves touched bottom beside the mare. Together both animals struggled to find their footing on the slick river bottom, stumbled and shifted, both nearly going down as they continued to fight for a foothold. As the river surged against them, the mare managed to keep her head fully above water while all he saw of the pony in that instant was its nostrils. Then the pony was back up, eyes as big as tea saucers, ears slicked back in both fear and the effort she was giving her swim across the frothy
current as the bottom of the sun’s orb sank onto the far western prairie with an audible sigh.

At the moment the mare nearly jerked him free of her tail, Bass’s bare feet scraped across the muddy, brush-choked bottom some fifty yards below the wharf where the pirogues continued to clunk together. All three soldiers moved down together to stand some twenty yards up the grassy bank, just past the two upside-down canoes as Titus finally got his legs under him, slapping the rump of both animals as they clawed their way out of the Missouri, clattering onto dry land.

He stood gasping, eyeing the trio as both horses shimmied beneath their loads, then turned their big eyes to regard the naked, white-skinned human with something bordering on a warning never to repeat such a crossing, if not outright contempt. Glancing at the big soldier who held a Harpers Ferry musket pointed his way, Titus clambered a little farther up the slope and collapsed to his knees on the grass.

“Just who the hell are you?”

Rubbing some of the river’s grit from his eyes, he felt his breathing slow, then replied, “Name’s Bass. Up from St. Louis.”

The thinnest one of the three took a step forward, a large-bored pistol hanging at the end of his arm, which he quickly waved at the two horses audibly tearing off shoots of the new grass. “There any more of you coming across?”

He wagged his head, slinging water from his shoulder-length hair. The breeze prickled his naked skin, and he grew chilled as he glanced back at the north bank. “Nary a soul. Just me.”

When Bass turned to step toward the mare, the thin one snapped, “Stand your ground, stranger!”

For that silent moment his teeth chattered, his eyes flashing over the three of them and the muzzles of those two pistols that had joined the fat man’s musket in staring back at him.

“J-just getting m-my shucks.” He gestured to the top of the mare’s packs, where he had stuffed his clothing beneath the ropes.

“Your shucks?” asked the third man, clearly the oldest of the lot.

“My clothes,” Titus replied, wrapping his arms around himself, shuddering with the breeze that seemed to pick up speed and muscle as the sun continued to sink in the west. “Wasn’t about to get ’em wet in making that crossing, you see. Now, if you fellas’ll just let me get back in my warm clothes.”

“Yes,” replied the thin one. “By all means. None of us particular like watching a naked man shake and shrivel up afore our eyes.”

With a grateful nod Bass turned to the mare, patted her on the neck, and retrieved his shirt, britches, and boots from beneath the ropes lashing the bundles to the horse’s back.

As Titus began to hop one-legged into his leather britches, the thin man out front asked him, “What the devil are you doing up here from St. Louis?”

“Headed west.”

“West?” the fat man demanded in a gush. “West, from here?”

“What you aim to do going west?” the thin one demanded. “Off to Santa Fe all by yourself?”

Stuffing the wooden buttons through their holes in the britches, Bass shook his head. “Ain’t going south to Santy Fee. Pointing my nose out yonder to them mountains.”

“You don’t say?” the third one replied with a bit of wonder. For the most part, he had been all but silent.

Bass dragged his yoke-shouldered linen shirt over his sopping wet head and asked, “You got room to put a man up for the night?”

“Do we, Sergeant?” the fat one asked. He let the Harpers Ferry musket droop until it pointed at the ground.

“I don’t know about putting you up here at the post,” the thin one began.

“Then I’ll just set myself up right out here,” Titus responded.

“Aw, c’mon, Sergeant,” the big-bellied man pleaded. “We ain’t none of us had no one new to talk with inside of weeks.”

“That’s right,” the third one agreed. “Maybe he’s got
some news from downriver what ain’t gone rotted with time.”

Jabbing his big horse pistol into the waistband of his military breeches, the thin man inquired, “You ain’t a scout from one of them fur outfits, are you? Rest of ’em coming ’long behind you?”

On the ground where he plopped to pull on his boots, Bass declared, “Like I said, I’m on my lonesome.”

“And you know exactly where the hell you’re going?”

Titus pointed quickly in the general direction. “West. Out yonder.”

The younger, thin man with the beaklike nose chuckled, then said, “So do you know where you are?”

“I’m on the Missouri River,” Bass replied, flinging a thumb over his shoulder at the frothy, muddy, runoff swollen water. “Still east of the big bend.”

“Ain’t that far to the bend now!” the third man cheered.

“How far?” Titus replied eagerly, standing, stomping his heels down into the old boots.

With a shrug the older man said, “Not far. I never was one to measure things out exact.”

“He’s right,” the sergeant injected. “So you reach the big bend, what’s that mean to you?”

“Means the Missouri heads north,” Bass replied. “And me with it.”

With a bob of his head the big soldier said, “Sounds like he’s got him a notion of where he’s off to, Sergeant.”

“Could be, Culpepper,” the thin one replied, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at the stockade for emphasis. “But—still don’t sound like he knows where he’s landed.”

Titus tugged the broad-brimmed hat firmly down on his head. “You mean this here post on the Missouri?”

The sergeant swelled out his chest proudly, swinging an arm expansively, proudly, over all his regal holdings. “Osage, it’s called,” he offered. “Fort Osage.”
*

*  *  *

It was a sometimes proposition, this Fort Osage was.

During the early 1820s it had become the jumping-off point for those traders headed down the Santa Fe Trail.