Death Rattle (65 page)

“Damn, if we didn’t,” Titus said softly, the memory stabbing him of a sudden after all these years.

“Where is ol’ Zeke? He lope down to Taos with you, Scratch?”

Swiping a gnarled finger beneath his nose, Bass cleared his throat and said, “Zeke’s … he’s gone, Josiah. Been some years now. B-blackfoot kill’t him sometime back.”

Waits-by-the-Water stepped up to her husband’s side to explain, “The dog, follow Blackfoot. Blackfoot come took me, me and Magpie too. Dog go follow Blackfoot.”

Josiah shook his head, not able to understand, so Bass explained, “Those black-hearted sonsabitches come an’ stole my wife and my li’l daughter one winter. I didn’t know it, but Zeke took off ahead of me, followin’ that war party, hanging on their back trail till they shot ’im with a arrow. Damn poor way for that critter to die … suffering like he done.”

“You caught ’em, didn’t you?” Josiah asked. “I know you made ’em pay for what they done to your family. To Zeke.”

“Damn right, I made ’em all pay, Josiah. You know I ain’t the kind to leave no nigger standin’ when I got my dander up.”

Paddock laid a hand on Bass’s shoulder. “He was a damn good dog to the end, Scratch. Just the way we knowed he’d be afore we put Saint Louis behind us. I always figured he’d lay his life down for you or yours one day.”

Titus swiped a tear that had spilled from one eye and said, “He was a damn fine dog. Better a dog’n I ever deserved, I’ll tell you.”

Paddock turned to Ezekiel and explained, “So if you want to think you were named after a brave and big-hearted, ol’ gray dog named Zeke—then so be it, son. Because that was one special damned dog.”

Wiping another tear away in remembrance of the old cur, Scratch agreed, “That’s right. Zeke’s a fine, fine name for a young man like yourself.”

Ezekiel grinned, looking up at his father. “Don’t you
see? You just give me ’nother reason why you and mother gotta call me Zeke instead of Ezekiel.”

“All right, Zeke it is,” and Josiah tousled his young son’s hair.

Of a sudden Titus remembered a dark face from the shadowy past. His eyes widening as he wheeled on Josiah, he asked, “Where’s that Neegra we brung here to Taos with us? The one we saved from the Pawnee—”

“Isaiah Bass?” Josiah spoke the name. “You recollect how he took your name the day you rode north outta Taos?”

“Isaiah Bass,” he repeated that name softly. “Claimed he was gonna work with you setting up your shop here.”

“Isaiah did just that,” Josiah explained. “Stayed on for a couple years, anyway—afore he come to me one day, asking to take his leave.”

“His leave? Goin’ where? For to do what?”

“Lighting out for Fort Hall with some traders hauling goods up north. For the first time since we brought him to Taos in thirty-four, Isaiah told me how bad he wanted to find a place where folks weren’t so mean to him, like the Mexicans had been.”

“These greasers made it hard on Isaiah, him bein’ a Neegra?”

Paddock nodded. “So I outfitted him and sent the man off with them traders,” Josiah declared. “Last I’ve seen of him.”

“Damn shame these greasers run him off with their ways. Isaiah was a good man.” Scratch cleared his throat, blinked, and said, “So … tell us who these other young’uns are, Josiah—them standing back there with such good manners.”

Paddock went on to introduce his oldest daughter, Naomi, who he explained was some eleven and a half years old; then his youngest daughter, Charity, who was seven and a half years old; and finally, while Looks Far stepped away to take care of a customer, Josiah introduced their youngest.

“Come up here, boy,” he asked. Positioning the short youngster right in front of his legs, Josiah announced,
“This here’s Titus Mordecai Paddock. He’ll soon be four years—”

“T-titus Mordecai Paddock?” Scratch echoed.

“Yes,” Josiah answered quietly. “I give him Mordecai for a middle name because he was the fella—”

“I know,” Scratch interrupted. “The fella what you came to the mountains with. The one died on you that first winter.”

“Mordecai was the one helped me get to the mountains,” Paddock explained, gently patting the small child on the tops of his shoulders.

Scratch beamed. “An’ Titus? How come you give ’im my name?”

The boy twisted slightly, gazing up intently at his father who towered above him. “You named me after this old man, Pa?”

“Yes. You were named after the most important man in my life, son. I expect you always to remember that. This here’s the man who saw to it I lived through lots of things that would’ve killed lesser men.”

Josiah sank to one knee and gathered his four-year-old in both arms. “Truth is, Titus—if it hadn’t been for this old man here … I’d never been alive to raise you.”

They completed introductions all around, both sets of children standoffishly sizing up their counterparts as all youngsters are prone to do. Then Looks Far called her eldest over to her, unknotting the string of a canvas apron around Joshua’s waist.

“You take our old friends to the house. Move your tick and Ezekiel’s too—get them out of your room and into Naomi’s to give our guests a place to sleep.”

“Yes, mother.”

“We’re all going to sleep together in our room?” Charity whined in that way of a child feeling put out.

“If I did my ciphering correct, there’s only going to be five children in that one room, Charity,” Josiah scolded. “But there’s going to be a whole family in Joshua’s room for a while.”

Scratch blurted, “We don’t mean to put you out—”

“Damn! You ain’t putting us out!” Paddock exclaimed. “How I’ve yearned to lay eyes on you, so many times in the last twelve years … but feared you was dead.”

Bass snorted with a little laughter. “It weren’t for no
lack of trying by some red niggers, and a few white bastards too!”

“He curse that way all the time, Father?” Naomi asked.

“I’m sorry, Josiah,” Titus apologized sheepishly. “Forgot myself around the children. Most times with my own pups I’m speaking Crow so they don’t understand no American cussin’.”

“You young’uns wanna know how to cuss at someone you don’t like?” Josiah asked his children. “You pay real close attention to this here old man, youngsters. He’s the cham-peen who’s gonna teach you to do it right!”

“Go on now, Joshua,” Looks Far nudged with a big grin. “Take these friends to our place and get them settled. They must be tired from their long journey.”

Scratch admired how well she spoke English after all these years of practice. “Looks Far—I’ll wager you’re pretty good at talkin’ Mexican too.”

She smiled even bigger in that round face of hers and answered, “I get lots of practice with both. We hardly ever use any Flathead at all down here.” She winked at Titus.

“You talk good ’Merican,” Waits-by-the-Water agreed in her own halting English she rarely used.

Joshua quickly kissed his mother on the cheek, then asked, “How long will you be?”

“We always close up at sundown,” Josiah explained to his son. Then turned to Titus, saying, “Looks Far is usually the first to head for home. She gets a fire and supper started before I lock things up here.”

“We’ll be pleased to light a fire and heat up some victuals for your family,” Titus volunteered as they started toward the door. He halted at the door jamb and marveled at Joshua. “This big lad of a boy can show us where everything is. Damn, if he ain’t gonna be a big chunk of it, just like you was, Josiah.”

“Glory, glory, glory,” Josiah whispered as he stopped in the open doorway and pulled Scratch into another fierce embrace, refusing to let go right off. “Never, never, never did I think I’d ever see you again, old friend.”

“Don’t you remember what I said that spring morning when we gave our fare-thee-wells?” Bass prodded.

Paddock nodded. “I can recall it like it was just last week—I think about it so often. You was sitting on your horse, everything loaded up to go, with the sun just breaking over the Sangres … an’ you told me,
‘This ain’t the last you’ve heard of Titus Bass!’”

“Ain’t I allays kept my word to you, Josiah?” Titus backed away a step so he could gaze into Paddock’s glistening eyes. “I wasn’t ’bout to go for my final ride across that big belt in the blue ’thout seeing Josiah Paddock again.”

“How long can you stay in Taos?” Looks Far asked as she joined them at the door.

“It’s winter out there,” Bass declared, nodding toward the square. “I recollect we were fixin’ to spend us a winter here in Taos long time ago. This time I reckoned on finding ourselves a place to hole up till spring comes round again.”

“A place to hole up?” Paddock repeated, his voice rising. “You’re damn well gonna hole up with
us
till spring!”

“Only if’n you lemme work off what I’ll owe you for putting us up,” Titus offered.

“No man as old and skinny as you—not to mention ornery too—could ever work enough to pay for his keep!” Josiah roared and slapped Titus on the back. “Now take your family on to our house and relax till we get home to start swapping stories of the ol’ days!”

“C’mon, Waits,” Titus said, stepping onto the low wooden porch that fronted the village square. Directly across from the Paddocks’ shop stood the Catholic cathedral with its pair of bell towers. “I gotta have some time to cogitate on this so I can come up with a few stories ’bout Josiah to tell his young’uns.”

“Nothing you can say to these children of mine are they gonna believe from you anyway!” Paddock snorted with laughter.

“By the by,” Bass said of a sudden, halting at the foot of the porch and heeling around to look at Josiah. “Just
remembered I wanted to ask you ’bout something we saw a while back when we was coming into town: there was this bunch of soldiers heading down the Santa Fe cutoff. At first, I see’d ’em from a distance and thought they was
soldados.…”

“But they weren’t Mexicans, were they, Scratch?” Josiah asked knowingly, the merry light of humor gone from his eyes.

Titus wagged his head. “Strange to see them horsemen riding along under a flag the likes of what they’d fly back in the United States.”

“You’re right. What you saw was an American flag.”

That confirmation surprised him, almost as much as seeing those American dragoons. “So how come them soldier fellers is out here?” Bass inquired. “That government back in the States hammered out some agreement with these here Mexicans now so they can have American soldiers ride up and down the Santy Fee Trail atween the settlements and here? I reckon it’s a good idee for them soldiers to protect all the traders hauling goods down here to Mexican territory, what with running mules and gold back up to Missouri. Soldiers to guard all that money on the trail, I’ll bet.”

The big-toothed, ready smile had drained from Paddock’s face. “I s’pose you didn’t know a thing ’bout any of it when you headed down here.”

“Nothing ’bout what?”

“I just figgered you’d come down east of the mountains,” Josiah declared. “Maybe hear word of it when you come through the Pueblo or Hardscrabble. Maybeso even stop at Bents Fort—”

“We didn’t come down east of the mountains,” Bass explained, mystified and uneasy at this sudden turn in Paddock’s mood. “Figgered it was safer going through the parks.”

“So there was no way you could know ’bout the American soldiers.”

“Know
what
’bout ’em, Josiah?”

Paddock cleared his throat. “Taos ain’t Mexico no more, Scratch.”

“Ain’t … M-mexico no more?” He glanced around the square, shocked and baffled. It looked the same. Mostly Mexicans, a generous sprinkling of Indians in from the nearby pueblo. But only a small scattering of pale-skinned folks who were clearly American—foreigners standing out every bit as much as a kernel of corn would if it was laid atop a bowl filled with black peppercorns. “Can’t believe it—”

“Army from the States marched through here last summer,” Josiah declared. “Drove off the Mexican Army without a fight, throwed out the Mexican government. We’ve got us an American governor now—Charles Bent.”

“The hell you say!” Bass said, struggling to absorb it all. “Not that weasel Armijo now? Your governor’s one of them Bent brothers?”

“Right. He’s in charge of things now … him and a few troops General Kearny left down at Santa Fe when he went marching off to seize California from the Mexicans. Charlie Bent’s family stays up here in Taos—so he comes up from the territorial capital in Santa Fe to see ’em couple times a month.”

Scratch peered across the square, then turned back to gaze at Josiah. “I’ll be go to hell right here and et for the devil’s tater if that ain’t some news guaranteed to take the shine off a new brass kettle. You … you ain’t pulling on my leg, are you, Josiah?”

Paddock shook his head, his face all seriousness. “It’s the honest-to-God truth, Titus. Taos is U.S. territory now.”

Taos, Santa Fe … all the rest of it too. Country he’d slipped into and out of, ever watchful for Mexican patrols who enforced the laws, seizing a man’s beaver pelts to collect their heavy taxes. Country where he had always been an interloper, nothing more than a pale-faced visitor in a foreign land. And now this all belonged to the United States of America? There really was something tangible to celebrate this holiday season!