Crack in the Sky (42 page)

“I ’member ye telling us,” Hatcher assented.

“Every damn night since … I seen that nigger’s leggings, seen his mockersons in my head, and nary of it would go away and leave me be.”

“Now we know why,” Fish replied. “You was bound to get your chance at the nigger.”

“Solomon is right,” Jack agreed. “Ever’ man should have him his chance at those that done him wrong. Just one chance to even the score.”

Caleb snorted, “Looks to me like Titus done better’n just even up the score! I’d say Titus gone and got the better of it all!”

“Where’d you leave ’im?” Rufus asked.

“Right where he and ’Nother jumped me.”

“’Nother’n?” Hatcher asked. “How many red niggers did ye lay into?”

And as Elbridge brought him a scalding cup of coffee, Bass told them of the horsemen’s approach, how they attempted to outflank him and run him down about the time he noticed the warrior’s leggings and moccasins. He told it all—everything from breaking the second man’s leg, to gutting and butchering the scalp taker.

“Then ye just up and left that other’n to crawl off?”

Bass nodded. “He ain’t going anywhere very fast. I
don’t figger that brownskin’s gonna drag hisself outta the Bayou afore we set off ourselves for the Popo Agie.”

“Rendezvous ain’t long now!” Rufus cried.

“Wha’cha gonna do with that scalp?” Caleb asked. “Make you some hangy-downs, some scalp locks to sew to your shirt, maybe ’long your shoulder and down the arms?”

“Dunno,” he said. “Ain’t thought that far.”

Hatcher handed the scalp back to Bass as Scratch tugged nervously at the blue bandanna. Wagging his head, Titus said, “Lost my patch o’ beaver fur, boys. Can’t for the life of me … I took off the bandanny to show the one nigger where his companyero skelped me. Must’ve lost it then.”

“You want me to see to cutting you ’Nother from a poor plew, Scratch?” asked Solomon.

“No,” Hatcher responded instead as the others turned to regard him with curiosity. “Bass won’t be needing no more beaver fur to wear over that little skull spot on his noodle no more.”

He studied Jack cautiously. “I won’t?”

“That’s right,” Jack replied, kneeling at Bass’s knee, using one finger to describe a circle around the Arapaho’s scalp. “Ye won’t need that plew no more because ye got ’sactly what ye need to make a new skelp lock for yerself.”

Scratch gazed down at the glossy hair and the drying flesh he held in his lap. “For myself?”

Hatcher reached out and seized the trophy. “Take off that goddamned bandanny for me.”

“Why you want me to—”

“Take it off so I can have me a good look at that head bone of yer’n. G’won, do it.”

Quickly glancing at a few of the others, Bass’s eyes eventually landed on John Rowland, who sat alone at the side of the fire, staring morosely into the flames—totally without interest in what the others were doing. John looked up at Scratch for a long moment, then went back to gazing at the fire.

“Awright,” Titus agreed quietly, standing as he started to drag off the dirty bandanna.

“Sit back down right where ye are,” Hatcher commanded, stepping right to Bass’s side, where he could peer down at the bare bone. With one hand he gently turned the back of Scratch’s head toward the fire’s light.

Bass started to look up a moment. But Jack locked Scratch’s head in his hands and turned it back to the side so he could examine the patch of bone while holding the Arapaho’s scalp beside it.

“Eegod! There it is, boys,” Hatcher declared eventually. “Bass can wear this nigger’s hair for his own!”

“How he gonna do that when we know the bastard’s skelp gonna dry up?” Rufus asked.

“This here scalp ain’t gonna dry up,” Hatcher said. “Not if Bass takes care of it.”

“Just how’m I gonna take care of it?” Bass inquired.

“First whack, ye’re gonna salt it,” Jack explained.

Titus wagged his head. “Awright, then what?”

“Ye’re gonna tan it just like the squaws do all their hides.”

Scratch had to grin, what with the way the others were beginning to smile as if Jack had lost a few of his pebbles. “I … I’m gonna tan this nigger’s scalp.”

“Injuns do it alla time,” Hatcher declared. “Take ye some brains and water … get that worked down into the skelp. In no time at all it’s gonna be ever’ bit as soft as them skins a squaw used for yer leggings last winter.”

He stared at his leggings for a long moment, rubbing the brain-tanned, fire-smoked hide between a thumb and forefinger. “You really s’pose it’d work?”

“Mad Jack Hatcher says it’ll work?” Caleb Wood cheered, “It’s gonna work!”

Jack himself boasted, “Less’n a week from now, ye’ll be wearing this nigger’s hair for yer’n.”

“The hull thing?” Solomon asked.

“Hell, no,” Hatcher growled. “We gonna cut that skelp down so after it’s cured, it’ll be just a li’l bigger’n that bone on the back of Bass’s head.”

“Fit right over it?” Scratch inquired.

“Like it was made to be there,” Jack said enthusiastically.

“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” Bass roared, slapping his knee as he stood. “I’ll wear the nigger’s hair what got mine, boys!”

“Gonna look a li’l strange to me,” Isaac said.

Bass whirled on him. “What the hell’s gonna look so strange ’bout it?”

“Ain’t same color as your’n.”

He peered down at the scalp, a disappointment sucking the wind right out of him. “Damn, if you ain’t right. It don’t look like—”

“It don’t have to,” Jack interrupted, shouldering Simms aside. “The nigger’s hair is yer’n, no matter that it don’t look like yers. It’s the medicine what counts!”

With Hatcher’s contagious enthusiasm, he felt cheered anew. “Damn right, Jack! It’s the medicine what counts.”

“But Scratch’s hair is brown,” Solomon grumped, “and that there’s black as night.”

“Scratch’s ain’t gonna be brown much longer anyways,” Caleb declared.

Bass cocked his head, asking, “What you mean by that?”

“You ever look at your hair since we moseyed down to Taos last winter?” Wood tried to explain. “Ever give that beard of your’n a good look too?”

“This child sure is getting gray awready, ain’t he?” Rufus said.

Grabbing a hank of hair at the side of his head, Titus held it out before his eyes in the firelight. “This here ain’t gray!”

“That ain’t where ye’re going gray right now, Scratch!” Hatcher bellowed. “Up there on top of yer head. Down there on yer beard. Here,” and he grabbed some of the silver-flecked hair hanging right there at the temple. “Lookee there.”

Sure enough, if those strands didn’t radiate some gray in the firelight.

“Get me a mirror, you sonsabitches,” he grumbled at them. “I wanna see this for my own self.”

Hatcher turned to the rest. “Get the man a mirror, boys. He deserves to see just how he’s getting on in years.”

“But I ain’t a ol’ man,” Bass whimpered as he sank down upon the log with the scalp in hand.

Hatcher took the scalp from him and handed it back to Caleb. “Here, get that salted down real good for me. Roll it up like ye’d do a skin, and tie a whang around it till we can start on it in a couple of days.”

Caleb turned away as Isaac returned with a small mirror the size of a large man’s palms put side by side. Bass shifted on the log so he could look into the mirror with enough light to inspect his graying hair. Still, his eyes always came back to his mustache and beard. In a stripe of gray that ran down the middle of the brown mustache, on below his lower lip and down the extent of his brown beard, the hair stood out like that white band running down a skunk’s back.

“Damn, if I didn’t notice,” he confessed as he studied the gray hairs spreading back from his temples, the graying of that hair hanging from his brow.

“Ain’t getting old,” Hatcher declared. “Just getting gray earlier’n most, Titus.”

“Sometimes … it feels like old,” Bass explained as he peered at himself in the mirror, examining his first wrinkles, the spread of those deeply furrowed crow’s-feet.

“Chirk up, friend!” Jack cheered. “Why, ye got plenty to bark about this night!”

Isaac leaped in front of Bass, there between Scratch and Hatcher, grinning wildly. “Don’t you figger it’s ’bout time to punch some holes in Titus’s ears?”

“A damned fine idee!” Hatcher roared.

“P-punch some holes in my ears?”

“Hang some purties from ’em,” Rufus said, leaning in to tap his earrings with a fingertip.

“Y-you said … a hole?”

“Get me my awl!” Hatcher bellowed, ignoring Titus completely.

Scratch nearly came off the log as Rufus whirled away. “Your awl?”

“I could do it with a needle, Scratch,” Hatcher said, stepping right up beside Bass to grab hold of Bass’s earlobes,
tugging on them to turn Titus toward the light. “But a needle makes it a round hole, ye see?”

“Which means it takes longer to heal,” Caleb explained.

Hatcher nodded. “We’ll get some glover’s needles from the trader this summer: they got three sides filed on ’em like a awl.”

“Awright,” Titus replied with no small measure of relief. “L-let’s just wait till we got the proper needle—”

“But don’cha wanna have it done on the night ye killed that red nigger what took yer hair two years back?” Jack asked.

Everyone came to an immediate stop around him, turning to look his way, expectantly awaiting his answer.

Clearing his throat nervously, Scratch explained, “It’s a mighty fine thing you wanting to celebrate with me—”

Solomon hollered, “Birthdays too!”

“But I ain’t so sure ’bout putting holes in my ears—”

“Nothing to it,” Jack assured. “Why, ye had bigger holes shot in you with G’lena lead, bigger holes poked in yer hide by Injuns. Hell—don’cha ’member?”

“By jam,” Isaac said. “We can hang some wires in ’em!”

“Maybeso Scratch don’t wanna,” Caleb came up to say, patting a hand on Bass’s shoulder protectively. “S’awright—we can just wait till ronnyvoo an’ do it.”

“No,” Titus answered of a sudden. “By Jehoshaphat’s drawers: let’s punch them two holes!”

As if a horn of powder had gone off, there was a flurry of frantic motion as Rufus returned with the awl held aloft triumphantly. Hatcher began giving instructions while he stuffed the awl’s point down in the hot coals for a few minutes. Elbridge brought over a scrap of oiling rag to lay over the shoulder while they punched through Bass’s flesh. And Solomon went off to fetch a small coil of brass wire out of his plunder.

“Cut me two pieces,” Jack explained to Solomon as he returned. “Not too long neither.”

In minutes the others were ready, all of them crowding
in on either side of Hatcher to get themselves a firsthand look at the operation on one of the ears.

“Turn this way,” Hatcher instructed, tugging on the right ear to turn Bass’s head.

Elbridge draped that old piece of oiling cloth over the right shoulder beneath the ear where Hatcher was pinching the lobe tightly between thumb and forefinger.

“Damn—how much you gonna hurt me like that?” Scratch growled, rolling his eyes back to try peering at Jack’s hand.

“I don’t pinch it like this,” Hatcher explained, “it’s gonna hurt worse when I punch the hole.” He looked up at Isaac. “Got that chunk of pine from the woodpile for me?”

Simms handed him a small sliver of kindling wood about six inches long and some two inches wide.

Jack held it near the tip of Bass’s nose momentarily. “This here pine’s good and soft, Scratch.”

His brow knitted suspiciously. “What you use it for?”

“Gonna put it ahind yer ear like this,” he answered, slipping the flat piece of kindling behind the lobe. “I do this so yer hide don’t tear on the backside. Keeps that skin flat when I’m punching through.”

“Y-you ain’t gonna tear my skin, are you?”

“Eegod! I done this more times’n I can ’member.” Hatcher turned to Simms. “Time to make some blood, boys. Gimme the awl, Isaac.”

Simms bent and retrieved the awl from the glowing coals. He swiped it free of ash across his longhandle sleeve, then blew on it for good measure.

“Them ashes don’t hurt nothing,” Caleb declared. “They’re cleaner’n most anything.”

Hatcher took the awl from Isaac. “Gonna punch the hole now, Scratch.”

“Awright. Go right on ahead.”

Looking at Fish to see that he held the two short sections of wire, Jack delicately placed the awl’s sharp point at the center of Bass’s earlobe. Only then did he move the fingers he had been using to pinch the lobe and numb all feeling from the tissue.

Although he did feel the awl’s point penetrate the lobe, Scratch heard the sound of the piercing more than he felt it.

“You hit it center, Jack,” Caleb said with approval.

“Damn if I don’t always hit center,” Hatcher replied. “Here. Gimme a wire.”

Jack passed the awl off to Isaac and took from Solomon a short length of thick brass wire the trappers employed for making a variety of repairs around camp: all the way from wrapping about cracked wrists and forestocks on their rifles to making strong, long-lasting repairs to saddles and other tack where sinew would likely break down and unravel.

“Isaac, set that awl back to the coals for me,” Hatcher instructed as he seized the short piece of wire near its end.

After wiping off a little blood that oozed from the new hole, Hatcher carefully poked the wire through to the back side. Quickly he bent the wire into a crude hoop without tugging on the lobe too much, then looped and twisted the ends back on themselves so that the hoop wouldn’t be falling out by any accidental rubbing.

“How’s that feel?” Jack asked as he began to pinch the left ear, nudging Bass’s head in the opposite direction toward the firelight.

“Don’t feel much of a thing,” Bass confessed, surprised.

“Awl,” Hatcher said as Elbridge dragged the cloth off the right shoulder and draped it over the left.

“He’s sure gonna be one pretty nigger!” Gray declared.

Hatcher placed the awl tip against the earlobe right where he wanted to make the hole. “Shit! Ain’t no pair of goddamned brass ear wires gonna make this mud-ugly son of a bitch into a pretty nigger!”

He rolled his eyes up at Jack. “Who you calling mud-ugly?”

Hatcher punched the awl through the lobe into the soft pinewood stop, yanked the awl out, and when he had handed it off, took the second piece of wire and slipped it through to loop it off. Then he stepped back, cocking his
head from this side to that, back and forth, first inspecting one ear, then the other.