Dance on the Wind (79 page)

Bass leaned close, enthralled and captivated with every new twist in the story. “What became of you and them Rees you bumped into?”

“A fight of it—that’s what. They kill’t two of us, right off. Shot me up a li’l”—Isaac pointed to his left arm—“an’ kill’t our only horse. Me an’ Glass, we jumped down into a small stream slick with ice, wading on down hugging the bank and hangin’ back in them bare willers real close—yest like they was a woman’s soft breast. Weren’t long before we found us a hole in that bank to hide in, yest big
enough for our ol’ bones to scrunch up in—it bein’ close to low-water time and the beaver bein’ moved on, leaving that hole behin’t for us the way they done. Down in that stream them Rees damn well couldn’t find ’em no tracks of the two white men got away. We pulled in some wilier behin’t us, to cover up the mouth of that hidey-hole, an’ laid thar’, holdin’ our wind. Up an’ down the crik above us Injuns hooted an’ hollered fer the better part of that arternoon afore we heard ’em pull off an’ leave. ’Long torst the sun goin’ down we heard ’em screeching in glee off upriver. Likely they was workin’ over them two other fellers started out with us from Henry’s post.”

“Who was they?”

“Never knowed their Christian names—damn me,” Washburn admitted, wagging his head dolefully. “Likely them boys had ’em families, Glass said that night when it was gettin’ dark. That was the very fust thing he said ever’ since’t we crawled into that hole too. An’ it were the last thing he ever said about them two, from thar’ on out. Arter slap-dark we finally dared stick our heads out an’ started walking.”

“Where the hell you head to then?” Titus asked, driving the hammer down hard, sending fireflies of sparks from the heated metal as it bent around the anvil’s horn.

“Ol’ Hugh claimed he felt right pert. Claimed this time he had him his gun and his fixin’s. Not like the last time he’d been left to push through Injun kentry after Fitz run off with ever’thing Glass owned. It gave me the willers ’cause he kept saying, over an’ over: ‘’Sides, us keepin’ our ha’r in that fix is yest ’nother sign God’s watching over me—making sure I track down Fitz, the one what left me fer dead.’”

“Bet you fellas covered some ground that night,” Bass said eagerly. “Sleep all day?”

Isaac nodded. “Found us some cover come sunup. Laid low till the night come round again. Went on like that, night arter night—making ourselves a hidey-hole ever’ day. That ol’ man was some walker, he was. Had him a big chest he could fill up with that cold winter air, strong legs he kept a’movin. He was one coon downright made for walking. Me? I was a man made for
riding.
I
come to figger that out follerin’ Hugh Glass cross’t that Platte River kentry. Never been more certain of anythin’ in my life: Isaac Washburn ain’t cut out fer walkin’.”

“So where’d you two light out for?”

“Eventual we left the Platte, struck out overland, making for Fort Kioway again. I turned to Ol’ Glass. ‘How far you make it from here?’ asks I. ‘More’n two hunnert miles,’ says he. ‘Closer to three hunnert likely.’ I scratched my head, looked off into that night sky, darker’n the belly of your own grave, I s’pose. So I up an’ asks him, ‘Ain’t Atkinson closer? Maybe by half?’ He yest looked at me, no smile, no nothin’. ‘Shore is,’ Glass said. ‘We’ll go thar’ … if’n you got balls big enough to walk with me through Pawnee kentry. Them niggers be wintered up all ’long the Platte this time of year. Best you recollect I runned off from the Pawnee fer a damn good reason, Isaac.’”

When Washburn paused in moving his story along, Bass grew impatient and inquired, “Which way you decide to go?”

“I tol’t Hugh we’d head for Kioway.”

“To stay away from them Pawnee he hated,” Titus observed.

“We struck the headwaters of the Niobrara. Crossed over the divide thar’ an’ come on the headwaters of the White. Movin’ north by east ever’ night—watchin’ for sign in the sky, them stars. Laying out o’ sight ever’ day. Comin’ right through the heart of them badlands the Pawnee steer clear of. Glass said he knowed the White River take us right on to the Missouri. When we get there, we’d turn north a short piece and find ourselves at Kioway.”

“He go and tell you all about that bear and him while the two of you was on your way there?”

“Times it were downright spooky bein’ with Ol’ Glass. Fer the longest while he’d go heap of a time ’thout talkin’, then of a sudden he’d up an’ growl like a dog, sayin’: ‘Fitz, ye g’won have yer spree while’st you can, ’cause this’r ol’ child’s comin’ to get ye.’”

“How long did you go afore you got across that Injun country?”

“Better’n sixteen suns it took us afore I spotted that flagpole at Fort Lookout, I mean Kioway. Both of us wore
down, skinnier’n hell. Been eatin’ prerra dogs when we couldn’t find us no game. My mocs was wored clear through—by then I was walkin’ on prerra-dog skins I had tied round my feet.”

“Damn,” Bass said with quiet admiration, “I had me no idea, Isaac. No idea what you come through.”

Washburn shrugged it off. “Could’ve been leaner times. As it was, all grass and gopher the hull way. Stopping only long enough ever’ day to lay low an’ blow arter trotting up a good pace right on through moon-time.”

Bass sensed some shame rising in his gorge as he looked at the trapper there in his worn and greasy buckskins. “Isaac—I’m sorry I made such a row over you eatin’ my vittles t’other night.”

“Think you nothin’ of it, now, Titus.”

“Had I knowed you hadn’t et in … how long it been since’t you reached Fort Kiowa?”

“Not that many suns,” Washburn replied. “It were there we catched us a early-spring boat headed south to Atkinson. That’s a big post where the law says a man has to have him a permit to move beyond thar’ into Injun kentry. Ye see: either a man is with a fur company, or he’s in the army. I wasn’t damn fool enough to join the army … and arter two trips to the upper Missouri, I’d had my fill of fur-company doin’s. Fort Atkinson t’weren’t the place for the likes of me.”

“What come of Glass?”

“That ol’ bear-bait stayed on to argue with that post commander ’bout getting his hands on Fitzgerald—since we l’arn’t that snake-eyed son of a bitch had gone and join’t the army. That meant if Glass kill’t the bastard—the army’d turn around an’ hang Glass. Last thing Hugh said to me afore we parted was, ‘Of a sudden, Isaac—thar’ be some big stones throwed down in the way of the Lord’s own vengeance.’”

Titus asked, “After all Glass’d been through, you know if he ever got his hands on the fella left him for dead?”

Washburn screwed up his lips a bit around that snag of a fang, admitting, “I didn’t wait to see what come of it, Glass’s work an’ the Lord’s vengeance. Likely I’ll never
forget what that child said over an’ over again to me from the time we tramped south from Henry’s post: tellin’ me how it was to wake up looking at buzzards flyin’ overhead, roostin’ on branches nigh within reach—to find his own grave scooped out aside him. Naw, Titus Bass—first chance I had I come on down hyar to St. Louie. Set on having me a real spree arter all that Injun trouble an’ starvin’ times I had me on up that goddamned river. Man what has him Injun trouble deserves a spree, don’t he?”

“I had me some,” Bass declared, “not near as bad as you had. Chickasaw it were.”

“Chickasaw?”

“They ended up killing a friend of mine. Nearly got the rest of us too. On the Messessap.”

“That yer kentry down thar’?”

“It was then, I s’pose.” No, he thought better of that answer. “That ain’t no white man’s country, Isaac. I been through there on foot—like you coming down from the Yellowstone. Walked back through that Choctaw and Chickasaw country on foot, following the Natchez Trace.”

Washburn stood, stretched some kinks out of his back as if he were the one who had been pounding on trap springs that cold spring morning. “Sounds to me you put some kentry under you, Titus Bass.”

His hammer came to a halt, the last ring fading in the damp air. “I have, I s’pose, at that.”

Scratching his nose, Isaac spit into the pile of hay again, then looked Titus squarely in the eye to ask, “Like ye said t’other night—ye still hanker to put some more miles under ye?”

For a long moment Bass could not answer, his throat seized up with what import he sensed in those words. When he finally found his tongue, Titus asked, “Serious?”

“Isaac Washburn never been one to waste his wind, son.”

His heart was pounding as he replied, “What you got in mind?”

The trapper toed the dusty floor below him with a worn and patched moccasin, saying, “Head west with me. I figger to see me them moun-tanes out thar’ west on that Platte kentry. That’s land I only got a wee peek of, comin’
down the Powder with Glass. Maybe the two of us throw in together—if’n yer of a mind to—we can turn right at them Stonies—head up north to meet up with Major Henry, maybe some of them others, out thar’ on the Yallerstone. What say ye?”

Bass realized he was gripping that heavy hammer tight enough to squeeze the hickory handle in two as he formed the words. “You … you saying you want me to throw in with you?”

“Yer a likely sort, Titus. Ain’t a young lad no more—but I figger that runs in yer favor. Yessir, way I see it—ye got the makin’s of a partner. Allays better to travel with ’nother, ’cept when that ’nother man ain’t the sort can be trusted.”

Lord, how his head was pounding, his eyes almost ready to swim with such tears of happiness. “Isaac, you just told me you barely lived to make it to that Kiowa post. But here you are, saying you’ll head out again. Maybeso to lose your fixings and eat prairie dog again.”

Washburn slapped his thigh with a snort and a grin. “Ain’t it the truth? So—what d’ye say, Titus Bass? Aye? Ye got the makings to come to them moun-tanes with me?”

“I … I got a old horse,” he stammered. “I mean—I’ll get me ’nother horse. Like your’n.”

“That’un?” Washburn asked, thumbing back to the animal tied outside a far stall. “He ain’t no horse, Titus. No more’n a rabbit-eared, jug-headed Injun pony.”

“Where you come by him?”

“Happed onto a band of Omaha north of Fort Osage—maybeso ’nother tribe,” he snorted in glee. “Be fittin’ if it were a Pawnee pony, don’t ye figger?”

“You just took him?”

With a devilish grin and twinkle to his eye, Washburn shrugged and said, “Needed me one, Titus. So I took him. I ain’t got a pot to piss in an’ no window to throw it out of, so how ye figger I’m gonna buy myself a horse an’ outfit now that I come to St. Louie?”

“I … I dunno—”

“With what, Titus? What I got to buy a horse? I lost near all my fixin’s too. Takes a man money to make a new outfit.”

“I got money, Isaac.”

His tired old eyes lost their devilish twinkle and took on a serious light. He leaned close to the younger man. “Ye … said ye got money … money ye let me have to buy me fixings?”

“To buy
us
fixings,” Bass corrected.

Straightening, Washburn appraised the younger man once again, this time more carefully than ever, and eventually shook his head. “If that hoss don’t take the circle.”

“Take the circle?”

“You gonna throw in with me, are ye? Puttin’ up yer plews to buy our outfit?”

Bass glowed with a fire inside—few things had ever felt so right. “I got the money—you got the country. Right?”

“That’s right. I got the kentry, fer damned sure,” Washburn answered, tapping his forehead with one finger. “Fer the both of us, Titus Bass—I got the hull consarned Rocky Moun-tane kentry, right up here.”

“Arr! Arr! Arrrggggg! God …
goddamn!”

Bass bolted awake with a start at Washburn’s roar.

Isaac thrashed in his blankets, struggling to free his legs—then as suddenly the trapper awoke. Sat up. Drew his legs up against himself and wrapped his arms around them. He began to rock back and forth, staring blankly at nothing while he mumbled.

“You all right, Isaac?” Titus asked, scared at what he saw on the older man’s face.

When Washburn did not reply, Bass inched closer, crawling on his hands and knees across that clay floor where he lived back in the corner of Troost’s livery. Slowly, he reached out, laid his hand gently on the trapper’s shoulder.

Isaac nearly jumped out of his skin at the touch, swinging an arm wildly at Bass. Titus fell back against his own blankets sprawled on the pallet of fresh hay.

“Isaac?”

“What the hell you want?”

“You … it’s me. Titus,” he tried to explain.

“I damn well know who it is,” he snapped, finally turning to look directly at Bass. “What’s the matter with ye—don’t think I know who ye are?”

“You was screaming—sounding wild … wild as you would if’n that grizzly that got Hugh Glass was after you.”

For a moment Washburn tried to glare Bass down, then gave in. The anger, the bravado, drained from his face, and he buried his face in his arms he had looped over his knees.

Titus asked, “You want I get you something?”

“Some of that whiskey maybe,” was the mumble.

From one of the empty cherrywood pails Titus retrieved the green bottle, the glass cold against his skin. Putting the cork in his teeth, he worried it from the neck, then nudged the bottle against Washburn’s hand. Isaac looked up from his arms, recognized the bottle for what it was, and took the whiskey. As Bass turned away to pry open the small stove’s door, he listened as the potent liquid spilled down the old man’s gullet in great, ravenous gulps.