Man didn’t need no woman giving him the willies the way they sometimes did, taking his mind right off of what he should be keeping his mind to.
And Pretty Water was just that sort of woman. The kind that would steer a man’s mind off of near everything but coupling with her.
He felt his flesh stir here in the darkness at this remembrance of her. Of lying with her beneath blankets or robes as he healed from his wounds that terrible autumn. Her gentle touch mending all those places where his flesh was slowly knitting. And by the time she had come to ask him why he did not want her for his wife, he knew a smattering of Shoshone—just enough to really botch his trying to explain to her why he could not marry her.
How those big cow eyes of hers had pooled and spilled before she’d bit her trembling lower lip, turned, and dived out the lodge door.
For days Pretty Water did not return, her place taken by others who politely pretended not to hear when he asked of her. At last one of the old women told him he was healed. Time for him to rejoin the white men who had returned that very day to follow the Shoshone village through winter while Bass grew stronger. Time, the old woman told him, to forget about Pretty Water. She would never be his.
But how he longed for her again this night.
Wasn’t a man really a fool for allowing a woman to entangle herself around him so tightly? Damn—but why had God made them the sort of creatures what smelled so good, their fragrant flesh like downy velvet, all the soft and rounded curves of them rising and falling through hills and valleys?
He craved a woman, but of a time he convinced himself he didn’t want one. Oh, how maddening God had made this clumsy dance between the sexes! And in the end, how truly weak a man proved to be in the face of all the tricks and ploys a woman could pull on him.
Those last weeks among the Shoshone had been particularly hard without her. As the days passed, he had grown more and more restive, eager to take to the trail, to be gone from her, anywhere. Keeping to himself by and large so he would not have to chance upon her, until at last that morning arrived when Hatcher had moved out with his small brigade.
Someone stirred there in the black of night. Bass opened his eyes. Hatcher stood, blotting out part of the starshine above them. Nearby Fish and Wood slowly peeled themselves off their beds of cedar boughs and sagebrush. Sleeping right against the cold ground itself could stove up a man, stiffening his joints, paining his bones. Better for him to put some cushion between himself and the cold, bare ground.
What a fool he had been, Titus brooded as he sat up and volved his shoulders slowly. Remembering how ashamed he was when Goat Horn had brought his Shoshone warriors to pull the trappers’ fat out of the fire, pitching into the Blackfoot raiders who had the white men surrounded. Ashamed that he had been so demented to actually wonder if Pretty Water might have come along with the Shoshone war party. How reasonable it had seemed—since the village knew the warriors were coming to rescue Hatcher’s men, she might well choose to ride along to see for herself that Bass was still alive … for a few moments at least he could hope.
But within heartbeats all hopes were dashed. No woman had accompanied the war party. And not one of the Shoshone came up to explain to him that Pretty Water had reconsidered her actions, that she was worried about his safety. That she cared enough—
“Let’s get those cinches tightened,” Hatcher whispered, puffs of vapor streaming from his lips as he straightened and worked the kink out of a bony knee.
Without a word the others came up from the dark, cold ground, stepped over to their horses, where they threw up the stirrup straps so they could retighten the cinches. Bass shifted the Indian style chicken-snare saddle the others had given him last fall, snugging its high pommel up against the withers before he tugged up on the buffalo-hair cinch and locked it down.
“How you figger this, Jack?” Wood asked.
“We’ll ride on down to the stream they camped by,” Hatcher began as if he had given it all the thought in the world. “Feel how the wind moves, then see if we can find where them red-bellies put their horses out to graze.”
Fish asked, “Come onto ’em from downwind?”
“Only way,” Jack replied. “Afore that, best we give some thought to taking care of ary a horse guard they throwed out.”
“How many you wager they might have out?” Bass inquired.
“Two, maybe. You?”
“That sounds about right,” Scratch answered. “I want one of ’em for my own self afore we put them ponies on the run.”
“Awright,” Jack said, his eyes glinting with starlight as he stared coldly at Bass. “You and me, Scratch. We’ll take care of the horse guard afore the rest of the boys here move in on them others.” He stuffed a foot into a stirrup and flung himself into the saddle. “I’ll lead out. Single file. Keep quiet as the dead.”
He reined away toward the far timber.
Bass rose to the saddle with the others, brought his horse around, and watched Hatcher’s back disappear into the dark. “Damn, if it ain’t quiet as the dead,” he repeated, in a whisper.
None of the rest saw how he shuddered in the dark as a lone drop of cold sweat spilled down his backbone.
By the time they had dropped off the ridge and worked their way down to the creek, Scratch could tell how old the night had become, those early hours of morning when the temperature was at its coldest. When both man and animal normally slept their soundest.
Not this night.
The six moved slowly, cautiously, feeling their way upstream through the tall, horseman-high willow and buckbrush so they wouldn’t rustle or snap branches, alerting the enemy to their approach. Time and again they stopped, signaling back down their file with an arm thrown up, every man jack of them listening and smelling. More than half a dozen times already they had halted like that, when Hatcher finally cocked his head and sniffed at the cold wind more than usual, then swung his horse around sharply.
When he dropped to the ground, it was clear they had come as far as they were going to in the saddle until the moment arrived to escape with the horses. Jack stepped up to Caleb Wood, handing him the reins to his mount.
“Ye’ll see to my horse. Solomon, take the reins to Scratch’s pony. Things go the way I plan—the two of us rub out the herd guard—we’ll circle back here to join up with the rest afore we all ride in to whoop up a scare in them horses together.”
“You smell ’em, Jack?” Gray asked.
“I make the horses off yonder,” he answered, pointing north, away from the stream. “But I ain’t smelled no Blackfoot yet.”
“Mayhaps they’re camped on the far side of the herd,” Wood replied.
“Things’ll sit pretty if they are,” Hatcher stated. Then he fixed Bass with his eyes for a moment before he went on. “The rest of ye know what to do … if’n one or the both of us don’t come back in a bit.”
“We get the hell out of here,” Rowland declared. “There’s more Blackfoot camped in spitting distance than I ary wanna see—”
“No!” Hatcher snapped as he took a step closer to Rowland. “Don’t none of ye dare run off if things go mad. Ye finish just what we set out to do miles and miles ago.”
“We come for the horses,” Gray explained.