“So where’s this Titus Bass?” a loud, deep voice boomed in the dark behind Rankin.
“Who’s asking?” Scratch demanded as he dropped from the saddle onto the snow and started his horse through the corral gate.
“Dick Green,” the voice said as a shadow took shape and the huge, muscular man stepped up to the old trapper. He turned to hurl his voice over his shoulder, “As I live an’ breathe—if it ain’t him, Charlotte!” Then he was grinning at the old trapper, yanking on Bass’s arm as he trudged backward into the corral. “C’mon in here, bring them folks all in here now!”
The blacksmith’s big hand quickly seized hold of Bass’s mitten and pumped heartily as Green pounded Scratch on the other shoulder.
“Oh, my! Oh, my!” a high voice squealed as a woman squirted out of the kitchen door, a low rectangle of light behind her. “It is the puppy man! An’ he brung him his fambly, Dick! Lookee if he didn’t bring his fambly—” Suddenly Charlotte Green lumbered to a halt on the ground trampled by moccasins and many a hoof, staring slack-jawed. “Why—is this them two tiny puppies you buyed from me?”
He watched her crumple to her knees in the snow, her ankle-length broomstick skirt fanning out around her as she began to pat the tops of her thighs and whistle as good as any St. Louis wharfside stevedore. “C’mere! C’mon over here, you li’l whelps!”
“This the woman who traded me for the dogs,” Titus explained to Waits as the dogs bounded over to the black cook.
“That is easy to see.” She turned and signaled through the open corral gate for the children to dismount, pointing them off to the right in this triangular-shaped corral strung along the full extent of the easternmost wall.
Watching the dogs lick the cook’s face, Scratch grinned, saying, “They sure as hell remember you!”
“What brung you back here for such a hoo-doo season?” Dick Green asked him as Rankin took the reins from Bass’s hand.
“We was down to Taos when the blood started running in the streets,” he explained in a near whisper. “Got out by the skin of our teeth.”
The big blacksmith wagged his head dolefully. “Figger to lay low here till it blows over, then head south again?”
Titus shook his head as Waits and the children came up beside him. “We’re here for a night, maybeso two at the most, then we push on.”
“Middle of winter the way it is?” Charlotte whimpered as she slowly brought her bulk off the ground and stood. “Surely you can find something to do here to keep these young’uns o’ yours safe till spring when you can leave.”
Titus smiled at her. “By first green we’ll be long on our way to Crow country, Miss Charlotte.”
He then went on to introduce everyone all around. While Dick went to fetch some short sections of rope to tie up the dogs there in the corral, Charlotte shuffled Waits-by-the-Water and the three children inside her warm, glowing kitchen.
“You manage the rest by yourself, Bass?” Rankin asked.
“Be just fine by myself, thankee.”
The trader tugged on his blanket mittens. “We got a few more chores afore Charlotte sits us all down for supper. An’ Goddamn don’t like to be kept waiting on his supper ’cause I’m late getting my chores see’d to.”
“Be off with you then,” Scratch said with a grin as Rankin started away. “And tell Goddamn Murray that the blanket man has come to pay a call.”
Rankin stopped in the snow. “Blanket man?”
“Time I was here last, I took near ever’ blanket Murray had in this here fort—traded off a hull shitteree of horses to him.”
A big smile crossed the clerk’s face. “The blanket man, eh?”
“All them blankets I packed north on Cheyenne horses been keeping the Crows warm for the past few winters.”
“Sounds to me I should ask Murray ’bout you sitting to dinner with us in the main room.”
Titus shrugged. “No need to bother ’bout such foofaraw doin’s.” He gestured at Charlotte and said, “Looks like we’ll be eatin’ just fine with the cook her own self.”
“Just the same—you still want me tell him the blanket man’s come to call?”
“If I don’t run onto him this evenin’, just tell Murray I’ll be round to call at the trade room in the morning.”
It was just growing light when Titus Bass slowly rolled out of the buffalo robes and blankets so as not to disturb his family, pulled on his moccasins and heavy coat, then carefully dragged back the heavy cottonwood door and stepped outside beneath the low awning that ran along this southern side of the courtyard. The wheelwright’s shop, where they had bedded down for the night, was located right beside Dick Green’s forge, with the wagon alley running just behind those small rooms, arranged in a row with the gunsmith’s and carpenter’s shops too. No one was yet stirring in the plaza, where a light snow had dusted the massive fur press. He stepped into the cold air, turned, and dragged the door closed behind him, when off to his right he made out the soft notes of a woman’s hum. Shuffling through the new snow he entered the kitchen, surprised to find it already warm, cozy, inviting.
“Well lookee here, Charlotte!” Dick Green’s voice greeted Titus as the blacksmith stepped around a corner. “Mr. Bass is a early get-upper hisself too.”
Charlotte poked her head around a corner, smears of flour dusting her nose, a cheek, and the side of her bandanna decorated with red Mexican roses. “You ready for some coffee?”
Scratch smiled. “Damn if I ain’t allays ready for coffee!”
“C’mon back here where we got the pot on,” Charlotte offered. “Mr. Green, I could use your help cuttin’ the bacon for me.”
“Be there straightaway,” the blacksmith promised. “You get this man a cup of coffee, then I be right with you.”
The Negro servants had spent a little time talking with the trapper and his family when their chores were done following dinner, at least until young Jackrabbit had fallen asleep in his father’s arms in a toasty spot near Charlotte’s fireplace where they all sat on stools and drank a rich, sweet mixture of Mexican chocolate seasoned with cinnamon. Their bellies filled with such delicious warmth, it wasn’t long before Flea and Magpie began to get drowsy too—their eyelids growing heavy as lead and their heads starting to sag. Titus, and Waits shuffled the sleepy children off to the wheelwright’s room, right next to the residual warmth of the forge. Scratch and Dick Green had settled the family in that shop since the wheelwright himself had marched off to the south with Bill Bransford to exact revenge for the murder of Charles Bent.
“He ain’t gonna be back no time soon,” Green had prodded the trapper, who was reluctant to bed down inside the shop. “You an’ yours stay right here long as you want. Likely he won’t be back for to work again till winter’s fair done.”
“Thankee for the offer,” Bass had replied as they shook out the robes and thick wool blankets across the narrow clay floor. “Maybeso only two nights, till we push on.”
“Stay longer, why don’cha? Charlotte, she’d love the company—your woman and the chirrun too,” Green pleaded. “There ain’t much wimmins out to these parts, so my Charlotte sure do get the lonelies for a soft face to talk to.”
Titus had straightened and stood beside the pile of blankets. “I know that feelin’ … the lonelies. But, long as Charlotte’s got you, Dick—and you got her, neither of you ever gonna be lonely, no matter where you go.”
“But my Miss Charlotte—she likes to talk to other wimmins.”
“We’ll let ’em gab an’ palaver much as they want for the next two days,” Titus promised.