Wind Walker (52 page)

“Will you write to us, care of Oregon City?” Amanda asked when the oxen were hitched and the last of the coffee was poured on the breakfast fire. “Tell us what becomes of you and Waits when that child is born?”

“I-I can’t say I will,” he admitted. “Not just ’cause I can’t write—”

Taking his two hands in hers, she pleaded, “Find someone who can do it for you.”

That’s when he confessed, “Never been one to write—not back to my folks in Rabbit Hash.”

Nearby, Roman Burwell stabbed at the soggy, blackened embers at his feet with a thin branch. Wispy puffs of gray smoke rose into the chill, gray air here before the sun thought of appearing. Nearby, Hoyt Bingham was pulling the loud brass trumpet from the back of his wagon.

Amanda quickly glanced at her husband, then told her father, “Both of us, we’ve decided we’ll write to you. To that post on the Yellowstone you told the children stories of. We’ll tell you all ’bout how we make out in our new home.
How Esau’s doing with his shop. And Shadrach’s family too. Just tell us who to post it to … where you’ll pick it up in the years to come—”

“No, Amanda,” he said quietly to shush her, squeezing his daughter’s wrists in his roughened hands. “Th-this ’pears to be good-bye for us.”

Her face screwed up in some momentary pain. Eyes pooling, she stared up at him, then said, “Y-you never know about that, Pa. We both thought we’d said our good-byes back in St. Louis when you left Amos Tharp’s place.”

He felt his heart stabbed with regret, a profound remorse for not giving her some hope to hold on to. So he hedged the truth and said, “You’re right, Amanda. Never know when we might run onto one ’nother come the years ahead.”

“So I can write you?”

Titus nodded, smiling behind his tears. “Yes, daughter. You write me much as you an’ them young’uns of yours can. I’ll find me someone can read your letters to me.”

“Where?” she asked breathlessly, using the fingers of one hand to smear the tears from both cheeks.

“Where else, girl? Fort Bridger. Black’s Fork of the Green. Rocky Mountains. Them letters’ll keep with Gabe till I get back round to see him.”

Roman Burwell took three steps and stopped there, towering over his father-in-law. “I can remember that. Black’s Fork. Rocky Mountains.”

“Lemme hear from them children too,” he requested. “As fine a bunch of young folk as there ever was, Amanda. You two made a gran’pa right proud … right proud.”

He turned to Roman, holding out his hand to the man. “I ain’t a prayin’ man—not like no Bible-talker is, Roman Burwell. But, you an’ your family gonna be in my prayers for a long, long time to come.”

Instead of seizing the old trapper’s paw, Roman shoved the arm aside and stepped against Scratch, surprising him as he wrapped up his father-in-law in his big arms. The fierceness of that embrace nearly robbed him of breath and made the hot moisture leak from his tired, red-rimmed eyes.

“I ain’t ever gonna forget you, Titus Bass,” Roman Burwell whispered in the old trapper’s ear. “Don’t know how I ever deserved to marry into such a fine family as yours.”

Then the big farmer inched back a step, and finally held out his hand. “Someday, I’ll figure out a way to properly say thank you for all you done for us—what with Hargrove an’ them men of his—comin’ out to find me and bring me back … doing your best to s-save our little Lucas …”

Titus could see how tough that was for the man to get out. “We all done our best—”

But Roman interrupted him, saying, “For all you done, down to seeing we had these two pilots what’ll get us to Oregon afore the snow flies. I laid in my blankets last night, tossing and rolling—fretting on how I ever could thank you proper.”

This time Titus embraced the farmer, then stepped back and said, “You don’t owe me a thing, Roman Burwell. Knowing how you care for my daughter, how you love her—knowin’ you’re gonna take care of her an’ your young’uns … that’s all the thanks I’ll ever need, son. You’re ’bout the best a father could hope his daughter’d marry to.”

“I-I hope I can live up to that—”

Scratch felt the tears come. “You awready have, son. You awready have.”

Amanda’s children were moving close when Hoyt Bingham trotted up on his horse with that brass trumpet propped against his hip.

“Sun’s coming, Roman!” he announced, pointing at the far ridge.

“You ’bout ready to have a blow on that trumpet?” Burwell asked as he dragged the back of his hard-boned hand under his nose.

Bingham’s eyes quickly surveyed the melancholy group; then he relented and said, “When you’re ready to lead this train to Oregon, Roman.” Then Bingham nudged his horse forward, leaned off to the side, and held down his hand. “Mr. Bass—”

“Name’s Titus,” he interrupted the train’s other captain as they shook.

“Titus, I just want to thank you for all you done for these people, since you’ve been with us. There was a time when I thought the only way we were going to find our way to Oregon City was on pure gumption.”

“You’d done it,” Titus said, his eyes landing on Roman for a moment before he looked back again at the man in the saddle.

“Now we’re sure to do it—sure to get these folks to a new country,” Bingham continued. “And it’s your help going to get us there, same as Mr. Sweete’s and Esau’s too.”

“I had family what needed my help,” he tried to explain as Waits-by-the-Water came up to slip her arm through his.

“Gonies, but I almost forgot! Want you to know just how much the whole train is beholden to you,” Bingham explained. “We ain’t got much extra to our names, but we took up a collection.” He reached under his belt and took out a faded bandanna, its four corners knotted together.

Scratch immediately put up his hand to signal and took a step back, shaking his head. “I ain’t gonna take that, Hoyt. You folks save it till you get to where you’re goin’ … then you give it to Shadrach and Esau.”

Bingham stared at the bandanna, where a few coins were tied. “You’re sure you don’t want this?”

“I ain’t got a need for your money,” he explained as Esau walked up with Sweete and their horses. “Keep it for your pilots. They’re the ones you should pay for leadin’ you to Oregon.”

“A fine idea.” Bingham nodded and stuffed the bandanna knot under his wide belt, then peered down at Esau. “How far downriver till we reach the first ford of the Snake?”

“Less than three miles, by my reckoning,” the tradesman replied.

“Then we’ll likely spend a good piece of the day getting across to the north bank,” Bingham said, shifting in the saddle. His eyes touched Shadrach Sweete. “When you two are
done here with your farewells, I’ll blow the trumpet and have Iverson help me line out the wagons for the march downriver to the crossing.”

They watched him turn his horse and move away, leaving behind that group of family and friends, all of them still in that nervous way of folks who don’t know quite how to say what needs saying.

To everyone’s surprise, Esau Bass was the first to make the attempt. He stepped up and held out his strong hand. “Titus, I said my fare-thee-well to you many a year ago … then you went and raised your head back into my life again. So, I’ve got a feeling this can’t be the last I lay eyes on you. If it ain’t out to Oregon, maybe sometime back here in your mountains.”

As he shook with Esau, Scratch pulled the tradesman against him. In that tight hug he whispered against the Negro’s ear, “You won’t ever know how much it means to me for you to lead these people west.”

They parted, still gripping hands. Esau’s eyes crinkled. He looked like a man searching for words to say, till suddenly he asked, “You like my new hat, Titus? Bought it special for the journey.”

He smiled. “A good’un. Gonna keep the sun outta your eyes.”

Nervous as he dropped his hand and took the reins Shad passed to him, Esau cleared his throat and said with difficulty, “Till the next time I see you, Titus Bass.”

“Make the most of your life out to Oregon, Esau,” he declared. “You done a heap for yourself awready.”

Swiping at an eye, the black man turned aside, leading his horse a few paces away as Shadrach edged up. Around the two of them Titus’s children were jabbering and patting the two small Sweete youngsters on the head. Talking in low tones, their Indian mothers held hands, sobbing and wiping tears, touching one another’s faces with wet fingertips in that way of Indian women taking their leave of one another.

“Watch your back trail, Titus Bass,” Shadrach choked.

“You watch your’n, Shadrach Sweete.”

He dropped the reins to his horse and seized Scratch in a last desperate bear hug. “I’ll see you in the mountains again one day,” he whispered in Bass’s ear.

“That’d shine, Shadrach. I’ll lay stock on that, ’cause that’d purely shine.”

When Sweete stepped back, Shell Woman inched away from Waits-by-the-Water, who came to stand beneath Scratch’s arm.

“You fellas take good care of these farmers,” he said, his voice thick and all but clogged. “There’s new homes waitin’ for ’em out yonder.”

Esau swung into the saddle and turned his horse away to follow Shadrach and his family as they mounted up.

Lemuel, Leah, and little Annie suddenly rushed against Titus and Waits, standing by that dead fire pit in a big knot as the five of them embraced.

“Gran’pa—we’ll see you again,” Lemuel said, his eyes glistening.

“I know you will, son.”

Pushing their poke bonnets off their heads so they hung at their backs around their necks, Leah and Annie both surrounded him with their arms at the same time. Little Annie was blubbering and could get nothing said, but Leah’s voice cracked when she spoke, “You made everything a lot better for Mama when Lucas was took from us. I won’t ever forget that about you, Gran’pa.”

He leaned down and kissed his granddaughter on the forehead, brushing some of the sandy-blond hair out of her eyes. “I won’t ever forget ’bout you girls neither. Both of you make your gran’pa real proud. I’m gonna count on you to help your folks ever’ step of the way, and ’specially when you get to Oregon. The same goes for you, Lemuel.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Make your pap an’ mam proud of you, ever’ day.” He patted the girls on the head, then shook hands quickly with Lemuel before the children stepped away with their parents.

Roman waved at the five nearby riders. Bingham raised that tarnished brass horn in the growing light of this new day
and blew his martial call. As the two Indian dogs suddenly lunged to their feet, expectant and prepared to move out as they had done many times before, on three sides of Scratch folks began to yell—at their oxen and mules, at their children, or just in an explosion of emotion as they rejoiced to be on their way once more, ready to confront the unmitigated might and power of the great and untamed Snake River. Step by step, mile by mile, day by day, these sojourners would always begin the next eight, twelve, or twenty miles this way. Voices raised as the dust began to stir and animals strained into their harness, lunged against the heavy yokes, whips snapping and milk cows lowing as they were nudged into motion.

“Ho, for Oregon!”

Burwell turned back one last time as he and Lemuel put their stock on the move. He touched the shapeless brim of his hat. Scratch held his arm up, steady and still in that coming light of day. Then the man and boy turned back to their duties, this getting on to Oregon.

Shell Woman was sobbing bitterly now, clutching her youngest against her as their horses moved off. And he felt Waits-by-the-Water quaking against him too as he held her tightly, so tightly against his side. Frozen there on the empty ground between the groups stood the two shaggy dogs, confused why their master was not joining the caravan on its way out of sight, eager to go, prancing nervously, as if seeking to goad him into motion, into catching up with the others.

Knee to knee with Esau, Shadrach reached Bingham and the four other riders, then wheeled his horse around one last time, ripped the big hat from his head, and waved it high at the end of his arm.

Titus felt the big, hot tears spill down his leathery cheeks anew as he yanked the hat from his head too and held it aloft.

“Yes,” he whispered. “I’ll lay eyes on you again, my friend.”

He started to tremble then too, doing his best to contain the grief as he watched till the last wagon disappeared
through the curtain of tall green cottonwood. Gone down the Snake. Making for Oregon.

With those two loyal dogs whimpering and whining in confusion, his three children stepped close, silent, while the creaking and groaning, all the noise of animals and those shouting voices, faded from their ears. Eventually swallowed by the distance stretching out between the here and the yet-to-be-seen there.

He waited, listening until all sound had been sucked from that dawn-kissed air. Then Titus Bass felt himself shuddering with a terrible sense of loss and held fast to his woman, all things made endurable with her at his side.