He’d already killed the bastard who killed his woman. And before he died he’d finish off the one who had scalped Slays in the Night. That done, it didn’t matter what Green-Stripe Blanket did behind him. Hell, his mind rumbled with the thought, he was halfway to dead already. More’n that now … ’cause he was already halfway to dead when he put the Crow camp behind him and rode after these raiders, knowing in his marrow this was the last time he would ride away from his wife’s people.
Real Bird had forewarned him, told the white man of that awful dream. But across the last three days there wasn’t a one of the Crow warriors who remembered the old prophet’s vision of doom for Titus Bass. There was simply too much misery and loss, too much blood someone must atone for, that any man who had long ago heard of Real Bird’s vision would think to warn the old trapper that he best stay in the village with his children and protect the camp. But here the old rattle-shaker’s dream was, come to pass—
He wearily pulled back on the trigger, heard the klattttch of the hammer as it fell against the frizzen. But the pistol didn’t fire. Nothing more than a muffled phfffft of what little powder lay in the pan. For an instant he stared down at it, finding the black grains mixed with icy flecks of snow, realizing everything had been ruined when he tumbled off his horse into the trampled snow beside the frozen beaver pond—
The warrior’s cry caused him to jerk up, but not in complete surprise. He had expected this.
Already Painted Robe was lunging his way … then suddenly stopped no more than five feet away and, for some crazed reason, stood staring down at the white man. His eyes wild, he yelled something to Green-Stripe Blanket, but Bass did not care enough to worry about the one still behind him. He heard that wounded warrior trudging on the crusty snow, heard his steps as that unseen one, who wore the skullcap of a wolf tied around his head, circled to his left until he stood far back of Painted Robe’s shoulder. That’s when Painted Robe raised the scalp up at the end of his arm, held it straight out from his shoulder, shook it, and cursed. Finally he spit on the hair, a second time, then flung it aside into the beaver pond.
With his one good eye, Bass watched the scalplock sail through the snowy air, land among those stalks of dried, frozen rushes, tangled among them and suspended for a moment before it fell to the thin layer of dirty ice.
“You stupid, ignernt idjit,” Titus growled, finding himself renewed as he spoke for the first time to these enemies. “You figger that’s a Crow scalp, don’cha?”
Painted Robe’s eyes narrowed as he shifted the tomahawk in his right hand.
With a snort of wild, unrestrained laughter, Titus pulled free the tomahawk from the back of his belt and roared, “Joke’s on you, nigger! Joke’s on you!”
As he was attempting to raise his tomahawk and heave himself onto one foot, Painted Robe snarled and lunged forward, the warrior’s tomahawk cocking back in an arc as the Indian loomed over him. The handles of their weapons clattered together an instant before the two men collided. Bass spilled backward, Painted Robe atop him, the Blackfoot doing his best to swing the tomahawk at the end of his wrist. Suddenly Bass flung his head forward, slamming his forehead against the side of the warrior’s jaw. Painted Robe hesitated.
And Scratch swung with his tomahawk, connecting with the back of the Indian’s head, but only a glancing blow with the side of the blade, stunning the warrior.
With a pained grunt, the Blackfoot roped his left arm around the back of the white man’s neck and yanked Bass’s head off the ground as he raised the tomahawk in his right hand, preparing to slam it down into the trapper’s face. But Titus shoved his open mouth right against the warrior’s chin, clamping down with all he was worth, feeling his teeth grinding through the thin layer of flesh and muscle, tightening on bone.
He heard the man crying out, felt the Indian’s hot breath there on his forehead as he chewed and clamped harder still, trying all the while to swing his own tomahawk with what strength he had left as the Blackfoot struggled, wriggled, thrashed—
Then Scratch felt it tear him in half.
As the white man released his grip on the Indian’s chin, he cried out in shock. The lower half of his face smeared with blood, the warrior pulled back slightly. Like the bullet wound, Bass did not want to look. He knew already. Even though he had yet to feel the pain of it, he realized he had been dealt a second mortal wound. The terrible cold seemed to envelop his whole belly as he willed his left arm to squirm free from where it was imprisoned between their two bodies, so it could rise into the air clutching his tomahawk.
One of their voices screamed as he brought down the weapon in the last, desperate act of a doomed man, driving the bottom point of the blade into the crown at the back of the Blackfoot’s head. Perhaps it was Green-Stripe Blanket who had cried out a warning to his friend. Bass wasn’t for sure. He couldn’t see the other warrior.
Or, it might have been Painted Robe himself who screamed as he saw the tomahawk on its way and could not get his head out of its path. Or, perhaps he yelled in surprise and pain the instant the sharp blade was being driven through his skull and into his brain. Bass felt the hot splatter of blood and brain. …
But none of that mattered now as Painted Robe collapsed backward, his legs tangled with the white man’s as all strength drained out of the trapper. The Blackfoot spilled one way, Titus slowly sank onto his elbow, rolled onto his back away from the warrior, and let out a long raspy sigh.
Hard to breathe, growing harder still. His chest filling up with blood. Shot in the lights.
Gradually the fingers of his right hand crawled to his belly, feeling the amazing warmth, the gushing wetness, the bubbles of gut spewing from the deep, long, ghastly wound that had opened him up from side to side. Scratch closed his eyes, wishing he could have held Waits one more time. Wishing he could have spent just one more night lying against her before this last day had been given them both. Just one more night with her—
Sensing a presence, Scratch slowly opened his eyes, blinking his one good one until it focused on the hazy form that moved over him, then stopped. Green-Stripe Blanket stood frozen over the old man for a long, long time. Staring down at the white man. Then the Blackfoot’s hand started down for the trapper’s throat.
In a futile move, Bass seized the Indian’s wrist, held it as tightly as he could while the Blackfoot used his other hand to pull himself free of the trapper’s grip. It wasn’t hard; almost all Scratch’s strength was gone. His head flopped back into the bloody, trampled snow. Titus knew he was too weak to delay, much less stop, what was to come. But a strange calmness seeped through him as he realized death was now. Assured of it all the more when Green-Stripe Blanket reached around the back of the white man’s head and seized hold of the collar of Bass’s greasy warshirt.
Ain’t you got a surprise comin’? Scratch thought as he was rolled onto his side. Figger to tear off my hat to scalp me now … an’you’re gonna find I awready been scalped!