Death Rattle (57 page)

“Why should I choose you?”

Maybe this joking had gone far enough. Scratch began to reach out to lay his hand on Flea’s shoulder when the boy took another step toward the claybank.

“Yes, of course I realize I can hear you, that I can talk to you. But why does that—”

With one more step toward the gelding, Flea stopped all but underneath the claybank’s neck, staring up at the pony’s eyes. The youngster nodded in the most matter-of-fact manner, then said, “I understand. Since you and I can talk to one another, that does prove you are the horse for me, doesn’t it?”

Titus hurried up and put his two hands on his son’s shoulders protectively, ready to put a stop to what he clearly did not understand, a situation that was giving him a very eerie sensation.

Flea turned confidently and peered up at his father. “This is the one, Popo. He told me something that makes sense.”

“W-what, son?”

“This horse admitted he isn’t the strongest horse, or the fastest horse either.”

“Then, why have you decided to choose him?”

For the first time, Flea reached up and patted the claybank along the strong jaw. “I choose him because he tells me he is most like you, Father. Not the strongest, nor the fastest. But because he is the smartest.”

Over the next few days, Bass spent part of every afternoon outside, basking in the late sun and carving a number of special invitation sticks that had to be ready when the time came for the naming ceremony. Using his smallest skinning knife, Titus carved his own unique patterns on the cottonwood pegs, then meticulously peeled away pieces of the bark to expose the pale inner bark. With a
bundle of those sticks carved, he started Magpie coloring the pale patterns for him, using some vermillion powder he dissolved in warm water. He showed her how to dip a fingertip into the horn bowl and rub the part in her hair for decoration—to use the same technique in rubbing the red dye into wood.

On those days when the unpredictable weather permitted, he took Flea hunting with him. Again there were moments Scratch scolded himself for not learning to shoot McAfferty’s bow simply because all they ran across were snow-white hares. But eventually, they would happen onto some deer tracks, or even spot a few antelope grazing out on the flats where the wind had blown the old snow clear. The first time he showed Flea just how curious a creature the antelope was, the boy ended up laughing so loud that the few animals bolted away before Scratch could get off a shot. They had to mount up and follow the fleeing animals until the antelope finally stopped again.

Once more, Bass hid their horses in a coulee. “You can come with me, son. But if you laugh at how stupid those antelope are this time—instead of some fresh meat tied over the back of your new horse—I’ll take you back to camp tied down the same way!”

“I promise,” Flea said, trying hard to wipe the smile from his mouth with his small blanket mitten.

“When I start crawling, you get down on your belly with me,” Titus instructed. “There will be no talking from here on.”

“All right, Popo.”

“Here,” and Bass handed the boy his rifle’s long wiping stick, to the end of which he had tied a corner of a bright Mexican scarf, a bright yellow cloth covered with a profusion of blue and red flowers. “You know what to do when I tap your shoulder and point?”

“Yes. I’ll poke the stick into the snow so the antelope will see the scarf waving in the breeze.”

“Good, lad. Their curiosity will work against their suspicious natures and bring them to us so that we can pick one of them for our supper.”

The boy’s face got serious. “No laughing at those stupid animals though.”

He laid a mitten on his son’s shoulder. “Just make sure that one day in your life, you don’t become like the antelope and are fooled into being so curious you blunder into your own death.”

They emerged over the side of the coulee where the ravine grew shallow, staying on their bellies as they crawled a few yards onto the prairie. Bass stopped and put out his hand to touch his son’s arm. Flea nodded as he reached forward the full length of his arm and jammed the ramrod into the crusty snow. Now they had only to wait while that Mexican scarf rippling in the wind worked its magic to lure the unwary antelope into range.

As a doe moved closer, Titus dragged the hammer back to full cock as quietly as the lock would allow. She was clearly nervous, pacing anxiously side to side several yards at a time—never coming directly toward the hunters—but her eyes always watching that scarf nonetheless. As wary as she tried to be, her curiosity was soon to be her undoing. Then at sixty yards, it appeared she wasn’t going to come any closer.

Titus glanced up at the scarf, measuring the strength of the breeze and its direction. Laying his cheek against the rifle, he snugged the weapon into the curve of his shoulder. Squeezing back on the rear set trigger, he moved his bare finger forward in the trigger guard to wait there like a summer’s whisper while he got the sight picture he wanted on her front flank. She turned, still nervous … so he repositioned the front blade.

Then squeezed.

That .54-caliber Derringer roared—old workhorse that it was. He knew this rifle, knew where it would shoot and where to hold, as steady as any man was with a firearm.

Flea was up and running across the snow as Bass clambered to his knees, then brought his legs under him. He stood reloading there and then while the boy reached the antelope and danced around it.

“Let me dress it! Let me do it this time!” Flea cried as his father approached.

“You can help,” Titus offered, glad for his son’s enthusiasm as he came to a stop beside the antelope doe, “but you must learn what is most important, son.”

“What?”

Holding the blade, Titus handed his knife to his son. “Remember that your empty hand must always know what the hand with the knife is doing.”

They knelt together, and Scratch grabbed a fore- and rear leg on one side, easing the doe onto her back. He stretched out her neck, then cupped his hand around his son’s hand as they lowered the knife to make that first incision from throat to groin.

“Feel it in your hand, in your arm and shoulder too,” he instructed. “Don’t stab the point too deep, or you’ll make a mess of her insides and it will spoil the meat.”

As they gently worked their way down the chest, Titus gradually took some of the pressure off his son’s hand, allowing Flea to do more and more of that first carving by himself.

“You must always be careful not to cut off your hand, Flea,” he reminded with a grin, his son nestled there within his arms as they worked in tandem. “Unless you want to be a one-handed horseman when you grow up!”

This antelope was a most welcome change to the deer they had harvested in the shady bottoms or that elk cow they had spotted in the hillside timber. A different taste altogether. It warmed his heart to see how eagerly Magpie and Flea ate and ate, until they were stuffed at every meal—knowing how little the children might have had to eat while he was away chasing not the mountain beaver but California horses. And each time he gazed at their greasy, smiling faces, watching them gnaw every morsel from the bones, he silently renewed his vow never again to leave his family behind.

It happened that a name was spoken to him.

At sunrise the next morning Titus bundled the children against the bright, sunny cold, pulling fur hats down over their ears to protect them from the frigid winds and the
sprinkling hoarfrosts. As Waits nursed the infant, Magpie and Flea stood before their father.

“I want my son to carry these sticks in his mittens,” Scratch instructed, then handed the carved and painted cottonwood pegs to Flea. “And at each lodge, you will give one to your sister so that she can make the invitation.”

“I ask them to come?” Magpie inquired.

Waits answered now, “To our lodge. At sundown this day. For supper and a naming.”

“Do you understand, children?” Titus asked them.

Both nodded their heads. Then Magpie answered for both of them. “We are ready to do this for our little brother.”

Scratch sank to one knee and gathered them both in his arms tightly. He released them and arose, saying, “Go then. And when you are done, hurry back. We have much, so much to do.”

After the two had shoved the door cover back in place over the opening, Waits-by-the-Water sighed, “You have decided upon a name?”

He chuckled, then said, “Dear mother of my children—we couldn’t have a naming ceremony for the boy if the Grandfather hadn’t already told me his name!”

At the appointed time late that afternoon the first guests arrived to scratch at the door pole.

“Is my white brother receiving dinner guests?” Turns Plenty asked.

Titus shoved the door flap aside, saying, “Come in, come in. I’m sorry you had to ask. Please, take a seat of honor as our first guest.”

As Turns Plenty eased around the left side of the fire in the path the sun takes across the sky, Scratch set his hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “Quickly now, put on your coats, children. I want you both to wait outside to welcome our guests. Magpie, you greet them, and Flea—you pull the door flap open for them to enter.”

The eager children quickly dressed for the cold and dived outside into the last of the sun’s light.

Singly or in pairs, the respected men of the tribe, as
well as those who had long ago befriended Titus Bass, all appeared at their door. When the last had arrived, Scratch called his children inside to join those who encircled the cheery fire, so many they formed two rings. Warm as it was in the lodge, the men quickly shed their coats before they were offered what tin plates Waits-by-the-Water owned, along with lap-size sheets of scraped buffalo parfleche. On these the guests were invited to take their choice from chunks of the boiled or roasted elk speared from the steamy kettles and pulled from those roasting sticks positioned around the fire pit.

With supper done and everyone licking the grease from their fingers and lips, the coffee was ready to pour. At their father’s signal, Magpie and Flea began passing out the shiny, new tin cups Titus had traded off Lucas Murray at Bents Fort.

“The cup my children give each one of you now belongs to you,” Bass explained. “It is just the beginning of the gifts from my family to you—in return for honoring us with your presence while we announce the Grandfather’s name for our new son.”

With grunts and murmurs of agreeable good humor, the guests held out their new cups as Titus and Waits each transcribed half the circle with their steamy coffeepots. Many of the men clinked their empty cups together merrily, holding their gifts aloft to salute respect for their generous host.

When he finally filled his own cup and set the pot down at the edge of the fire pit, Scratch retook his spot beside the oldest among them and said, “Real Bird, will you honor us with a prayer over your pipe before we begin this ceremony?”

From his beautiful blanket pouch, this ancient warrior and mentor to Rotten Belly and many chiefs took his pipe stem, the bowl, and a large tobacco pouch made from the scrotum of an elk bull. Though many, many winters had turned his hair completely silver, Real Bird nonetheless still possessed a strong “elk medicine” unlike anything his people had ever known. He was a physician and
healer, as well as being a diviner who could see into the days ahead and know what would come to pass.

With his pipe loaded, Real Bird held it before him and offered his prayer, face gazing upward through the wide, black hole where fire smoke rose in twisting spirals into the dark, winter sky. When the old one put the stem to his lips, Scratch picked up a small coal with a pair of iron tongs and placed it atop the tamped tobacco. After the diviner’s prayer, the pipe came next to the child’s father, Titus Bass, then continued on to the left until it reached the doorway, where it was passed back to the second row of guests so that its path continued back to Real Bird. Next it went hand-to-hand along the right side of the lodge, as each visitor offered his own extended prayer of blessing before drawing in his own six puffs of smoke that sent the prayer to the four cardinal directions, and to mother earth and father sky.

Once the pipe was back in Real Bird’s hands, the old shaman emptied the black dollop and separated bowl from stem. Then he called the mother forward with the infant.

“Give the child to its father,” Real Bird instructed.

Titus took the boy into his arms as Waits turned away and took her seat behind the second row of chiefs and headmen, near her two children who were watching in rapt attention from the shadows that leaped and danced upon the dew liner and lodge cover.

“Take the dressings from him,” the old shaman said.

Resting the bundle in his lap, Scratch pulled the blanket aside, then loosened the knots tied in the calico that was wrapped around the boy’s genitals to contain his elimination. Titus carefully wiped the child’s bottom with dried moss, then held the infant aloft upon his two hands. Hoisted upward there in the fire’s light, the youngster lay higher than any of them, suspended between the oldest of the band and the Grandfather Above.

“Father of this child—what is the name the Creator has chosen for the boy?” asked Real Bird in a reedy voice.

Tears glistened in his eyes and Bass found his throat
clogged when he first tried to speak. “I-I have learned his name is
Iische.”

“Jackrabbit?” Real Bird repeated as Waits-by-the-Water silently put her hand over her mouth, her eyes welling up.

“Yes.”

Around them many of the guests grunted or nodded to one another to signify their approval.

Turns Plenty announced, “It is a good name for a boy-child.”

“His legs are always busy,” Titus explained, “as if he wants to be let down from our arms so he can jump around.”

“Soon enough he will be,” Real Bird prophesied, then chuckled some as he raised his arm and placed his wrinkled, withered hand on the boy’s chest where Bass held the child aloft.
“Iische
 … I name you by all that is holy to our people. You are loved not only by your father and mother, but your sister and brother. And you will always know the love of all your people.”