Too many times in these last nine years he had simply reacted, not given the luxury of a moment to plan, to consider and reflect on what course to take. Here he was alive after so many had tried to kill him simply because Bass had absorbed the virtual wildness of this wilderness. The way of those beasts around him, that survival of the quickest, the most wary, those most cunning.
He had survived in this wilderness where lesser men were swallowed up simply because he had become wild enough to reach across that gulf between man and beast.
They had autumn beaver, a damned good start on what prime pelts he’d trap come spring. Maybe even do this winter what he hadn’t done in recent years—slip off for days at a time and search out those high country meadows and dammed streams where the beaver were laying out their winter safely burrowed in their lodges. A man could bust open the tops of those lodges, then shoot or spear the big flat-tails he caught inside. But those efforts always left a trapper with furs something less than prime—punctured by a gaping hole or two. Something that would pare down the price of his plews come rendezvous next summer.
And with what he had seen of the high cost of necessaries coupled with the slide in the dollar that a man’s beaver could bring, Titus Bass didn’t figure he could chance anything else robbing him of what prime he had left among his plews.
South of the Yellowstone River where the Crow would winter, down toward the Stinking Water around that region the trappers called Colter’s Hell, he was sure he could run onto some creeks and streams fed by warming springs, even those wider rivers where the banks bore plenty of beaver sign plain as paint and the water remained open throughout the cold months. A week of hard work here, and a week there, returning to the Crow camp to turn his hides over to his woman, nestle himself down in the robes with her naked, full-breasted warmth for a few days before he would set out again in search of another stretch of winter trapping.
Sure sounded like it had the makings of some fine winter doings. He’d revisit his old friends among the Crow, stay off and on with Waits-by-the-Water and his in-laws … but when he got that old itch to be on the tramp again, why—he could pack up a mess of dried meat and pemmican before heading south with Samantha in search of brown gold.
“Husband,” she called out, the word catching in her throat.
She had seen the smoke a heartbeat before he spotted it. Down the slope to their left, rising among the last few leaves still clinging to those cottonwood branches—faint spirals of wood smoke. Bass imagined he could already smell its fragrance like a wispy perfume on the cold autumn wind gusting along the ground, kicking up icy streamers across the top of the most recent dusting of snow.
“They are camped right where we believed we would find them,” he said with a smile. “Let’s ride on down there and show your family this little girl of ours.”
5
Arapooesh was dead.
It slapped him with the same brutality he had experienced in losing Ebenezer Zane, Mad Jack Hatcher, even the canny old preacher Asa McAfferty.
Rotten Belly simply wasn’t the sort who rode off half-cocked, spoiling for a fight, taking stupid chances. No, he had always been a warrior’s warrior, a prudent fighter who persisted in considering the odds and planning every detail of the battles he led against the enemy.
But the Crow had many enemies, and they were strong. Rotten Belly’s mountain band of the Crow required a vigilant defense. For a man like Arapooesh that meant more than sending his young warriors into battle—it meant leading them himself.
Rotten Belly had been killed in battle against the Blackfoot.
Waits-by-the-Water’s parents welcomed them into their lodge that first night of celebration and homecoming. Grandmother and grandfather could not take their eyes and hands off little Magpie, playing and talking with the child until she grew hungry and ready for bed. Across the fire, Bass did his best to join in with their talk from time to time—but for the most part he sat silent, staring at the flames, listening to the crackle of wood and the wolfish wind howling without the buffalo-hide walls. He wondered on Rotten Belly’s spirit. Where it was on its journey. Would he have already reached the end of that long star road to spend out the rest of eternity with the likes of Zane, Hatcher, and McAfferty, even with all of those Arapooesh himself had killed in battle?
That first night he awoke, fitful and damp. Slipping from beneath the blankets, Bass sat up in the dull red glow of the coals in the fire pit where he laid some small pieces of wood and watched the low flames till dawn when Magpie stirred, awakening her mother.
“I must go away for a few days.”
“We only arrived,” she said, lifting the baby to her breast.
On the far side of the lodge her parents stirred. The old couple sat up, but remained silent in the dim light, curious. Waits stared at her husband’s gray face, his sleepless, red eyes, trying so hard to read something there that would allow her to understand.
With his empty hands gesturing futilely before him, Bass said, “I must do something.”
“Give yourself a few days to rest,” she pleaded. “You have worked so hard, been on the move ever since we left the place where all the white men gather.”
Wagging his head in despair, Titus tried to explain. “I am torn. I do not want to leave you and Magpie—but something tells me I must be alone with this terrible news we were given last night.”
“Is this your heart crying out in hurt for He-Who-Has-Died?” she asked, referring to the departed without speaking his name.
Staring into the fire pit, he admitted, “Yes. I must go away to mourn for him—”
“Stay and mourn for him here,” she begged, patting the blankets beside her. “Ever since last summer my people … his people have mourned for him in his own camp. It is good to shed the tears among others.”
He crabbed closer to her, leaning against her shoulder. “My grief comes easy.”
His wife’s parents stirred. Her father, Whistler, left their blankets to scoot next to the fire. His black hair had only recently begun to show the iron of his considerable winters. He said, “Mourning does not belong only to women.”
Crane, her mother, added, “Tears should never frighten a strong man.”
With her free arm Waits-by-the-Water pulled Bass’s brow against her cheek. “My father speaks good words. Your tears tell me you are a strong man, strong enough to show how much you miss He-Who-Has-Died.”
“I raised my daughter to show her heart,” Whistler said. “But she must realize that we all grieve in our own way. If you believe you must ride into the hills to mourn, then that is where your spirit calls you to go.”
Waits tried to speak for a moment, but ultimately admitted she was not going to convince her husband that he should stay. “I will miss you. Hurry back to us.”
She turned away quickly, a gesture that tugged plaintively at his heart. Scratch knew she hoped to hide her face, those sad eyes, from him. He watched her back as she settled upon their blankets and gathered the baby to her breast.
He laid a hand on her shoulder and said, “I have lost so many in my life, friends. I don’t want to lose you, lose even your love.”
She laid her hand upon his, finally turning to gaze up at him, her eyes brimming, half-filled with tears. “When you left our camp two winters ago,” Waits-by-the-Water said, her voice no more than a choking whisper, “when you went away angry at me—I realized I never wanted to know that pain again.”