Dance on the Wind (75 page)

“If’n ye don’t take the circle, my friend! Fer a man what’s been beat as bad as ye surely be, I got to hand it to ye,” the stranger said with a nod of certainty. “No matter how yer painin’—ye sure don’t mind making use of that there mean mouth of yer’n, full of stupids the way it is.”

“Mean?” Titus snapped, trying to rise off his blankets, straining to hold his head up and bring the stranger’s face into focus. “You dance on in here the way you done, and you go off telling me I’m mean?”

“The way yer acting,” the stranger replied, “yer gonna be yest fine, I can see. Got lots of fight left in ye, yessirree! No matter that I find ye layin’ hyar lickin’ yer wounds arter someone nigh onto kill’t ye … but I don’t make ye out to be the sort to whimper an’ moan like a bitch ’bout to pup, is ye? Hell, no—ye still got ye sand enough in yer goddamned craw to bark at me like a bad dog.”

“Bad dog? Barking at you?”

“Yep!” And the stranger chuckled heartily. “Maybeso ye do got some ha’r in ye after all, mister—if’n ye can bark at me while’st yer all tore up the way ye are.”

“Ain’t no use in a fella feeling sorry for hisself,” Titus replied, working hard to focus on the stranger with his blood-rimmed eyes.

“Yer some, mister blacksmith. Think I yest might like gettin’ to know ye.”

“Don’t matter none to me if you do or if you don’t,” Bass snapped, immediately sorry he had. “I … I don’t have me many friends.”

The stranger crawled over and slowly knelt near Bass, the gamy aroma of him washing over Titus.

“Me neither, mister,” the man explained quietly. “Not … not many friends no more.” Then he suddenly reared back and slapped both palms down atop his thighs, rising to his feet. “Ye still hungry—I’ll run off an’ fetch ye some victuals.”

“I better eat,” Bass admitted. “If only to give me something for my belly to toss right back up.”

“Yer meatbag paining ye, is it?” He held down his hand to Titus. “Name’s Isaac Washburn. Isaac—with two a’s. What’s yer’n?”

“Titus Bass.” He struggled some to roll off his right side, but he eventually got the arm freed and gripped the stranger’s hand. “Where was it you said you was from, Isaac Washburn?”

“God’s kentry, Titus Bass. Up the Missouri—land of the Blackfeet, Ree, an’ Assiniboin. Seen me Mandan and Pawnee kentry too. Land whar’ them red niggers take yer ha’r if’n you don’t keep it locked on tight. Kentry where the moun-tanes reach right up to scrape at the belly o’ the sky, an’ the water’s so cold it’ll set yer back teeth on edge.”

Electrified at that announcement, Bass anxiously fought to prop himself on both elbows when Washburn released his hand. The older man clearly had a secure grip on Titus’s attention.

“You … you been out … out there?” Bass asked.

Isaac grinned, knowingly. “Out thar’?” And he pointed off into the distance. “Damn right I been out thar’. Seen yest ’bout ever’thin’ thar’ is fer a nigger to see north on the upriver.”

“Then … you had to seen ’em?”

“Seen what? Injuns? Yest tol’t ye: I see’d more Injuns’n I ever wanna see again in my hull durn life—”

“No,” Bass interrupted. “Have you see’d the buffalo?”

“Buffler?” Washburn reared back, snorting a great gust of laughter that showed Bass the underside of that great tooth all but sticking straight out of his upper gum. “Titus, I see’d buffler so thick at runoff time their rottin’, stinkin’ carcassees dang near clog the Missouri River her own self. From that river I see’d them critters moseying off to the north, goin’ round to the south, likely to gather up in herds so big they’d cover the hull kentry far as a feller could see.”

“Then you … you really see’d ’em!” he exclaimed
under his breath, wide-eyed and aghast. Bass’s heart hammered mercilessly in his chest, every bit as hard as his temples throbbed. How he hoped this was his answer. “Damn, here I am talking to a man what’s see’d buffalo for real.”

Washburn looped a four-inch-wide belt around his blanket coat, securing it in a huge round buckle. “My friends call me Gut.”

Quickly his red eyes shot down to the stranger’s belly. Nothing there that in any way remotely appeared to be a gut on the man. He was about as lean as a fella could be. Made of strap leather and látigo, most likely, Bass decided.

“Why they call you
Gut?”
Titus asked. “Ain’t a man can say you got a big belly.”

Isaac laughed. “No—not ’cause of my belly. Others laid that handle on me some time back—up in them Three Forks, y’ars ago it were—I s’pose fer it be my favorite food.”

“You eat … eat gut?”

“Not gut rightly.
Bou-dans.
A parley-voo French word for sausage, s’all it is.”

“Bou-dans,” Titus repeated, trying out the sound of it on his tongue bitten and swollen from the beating.

“Yessirree, my friend. I’ll fix ’em for us sometime while’st I’m hyar in St. Louie. Plant myself down fer a short time afore I feel the needs be pushing upriver once more.” He stared off for a moment before saying, “Lord, but for once I’d love to see how a man could do getting hisself west foilering the Platte.”

“The Platte,” Titus repeated. He had heard something of it.

Washburn pointed off with a wide jab of his arm. “Runs right out to the moun-tanes. One of them rivers what comes in off the prerra.”

“All the way in from far away on the prairie?” He had seen rivers long and wide and wild. But to think of a river bringing water down from mountain snows, all the way here to St. Louis!

Washburn smacked his lips loudly, his eyes gleaming now that he had the younger man’s rapt attention. “Like I said it, Titus: that water comes all the way from them
moun-tanes. What moun-tanes I see’d up north in the Missouri River kentry, them moun-tanes even down south of the Powder—they was still some ways off west from the criks and rivers I was trappin’ or trompin’. Word is, them moun-tanes on the headwaters of the Platte scratch the belly of the sky … an’ go all the way south to greaser kentry.”

He wagged his head in disbelief, trying to conceive of any range so high, any range that extended that great a distance. “S-same mountains?”

Washburn nodded in the dim fire’s light. “Same. North, to south—far as a man can travel in a month of Sundays.”

“Naw,” Bass scoffed, suddenly suspicious the older man was making sport of him. Titus had seen mountains, back east. That Kentucky and Cumberland country. He damn well knew there could be nothing near as big as Isaac Washburn was claiming. “I cain’t believe there’s mountains what run from the Missouri where you was all the way south that far.”

Squinting, the disheveled, greasy man gazed down at Bass incredulously. “Ain’t ye heard, lad? Right north of St. Louie not far from hyar, a man can foller the great Missouri north to trap or trade. Goin’ upriver, that man’ll run onto more’n a handful of big rivers, ever’ damn one of ’em coming in from the far, far moun-tanes.”

“I know ’bout the beaver trade on the upper river. Been making traps for years now,” Titus snapped a little impatiently. “What’re they called … them mountains you set eyes on?”

Isaac visibly rocked back on his heels. “Called … the Rockies. The High Stonies. The Shining Moun-tanes.”

“S-shining mountains?”

He nodded matter-of-factly. “’Cause they allays got snow on ’em, Titus. Even in the summer.”

“You seen them mountains shine for yourself?”

“Sure as hell have! I stared right up at ’em fer my first time near fifteen year ago when I was with Andy Henry on the Three Forks. Then I got me a close look again coming down the Powder this last winter with Glass’s outfit; saw ’em off thar’ to the west. Bigger’n yer gran’ma’s titties.
Why, Titus—they’re even bigger’n what I ever figgered ’em to be in all my dreams growin’ up back to Albermarle County.”

“Where’s that?”

“Virginny.”

This was all coming too fast, too damned fast. He sucked in a big breath and let his answer gush forth like a limestone spring. “And the buffalo—then you’re telling me them herds is real?”

For a moment Washburn stared impassively at the injured man atop his blankets in the hay. “Damn tootin’ they’re real, Titus. Whatever give ye the idee buffalo wasn’t real?”

He wagged his head a moment, trying to find words that would describe the gut-wrenching despair suffered these long years. “I just … well, maybe ’cause I ain’t never seen one myself—”

“I see’d enough in that north kentry along the Missouri River, up to the mouth of the Yallerstone, even round the Musselshell, and down to that Powder River kentry—I see’d ’em with my own eyes.”

“Lots of ’em?”

Isaac clucked a moment on that snaggled fang, then said, “I see’d so many I thought my eyes gonna bug out … but then Ol’ Glass—he’s a friend of mine I tromped through some kentry with this’r past winter—he a way ol’t hivernant from way back … he told me I ain’t see’d all that many.”

“A
hivernant?”

“Feller what’d spent him his first winter in the far kentry. Back ago Glass was one to live with the Pawnee some. But I knowed me some hivernants afore runnin’ onto Glass. Man-well Leeza had him a few hired men like that. Men so tough they growed bark right on ’em—like a tough ol’ cottonwood tree. But I gotta admit, Ol’ Glass had him more bark’n any man I ever knowed. Talked ’bout winterin’ up quite a few with the Pawnee—”

“This Glass, he said you ain’t seen very many, eh?”

Washburn jutted out his chin and slapped his chest once with a fist. “‘Many!’ I bellered like a stuck calf back at Glass as we was coming ’cross from the headwaters of
the Powder, making for the Platte. ‘That’s right,’ the son of a bitch yest told me quietlike.’ If’n a man wants to see the hull consarned world covered up by buffler, he needs to take hisself on down to the prerra country come spring greenup. It’s there the buff graze and breed, moseying slow as you please afore the winds of the seasons. An’ they cover the hull durn earth from horizon, to horizon, to horizon.’” As he said it, Isaac pointed here, then there, then over there in emphasis. “That’s what he said, the truth of it too. I believe that nigger, Glass.”

“As f-far as a man can see?” Titus asked, incredulous. He had wanted to believe. Then gave up all hope. And now Isaac Washburn was telling him the whole earth was damn near black with them.

“Like a blanket coverin’ ever’thing,” Washburn added, kneeling slowly at Titus’s side. He held his open hands up to the glow in that little stove, rubbed them. “That’s the country I wanna go to see with my own eyes one day soon, Titus Bass. Clear to the moun-tanes.”

“How come you been all the way out there—but you ain’t never got to the mountains?”

“Hol’t on there, Titus,” Isaac corrected. “I been up the mighty Missouri for many a season now, trappin’ beaver for that greaser he-coon named Man-well Leeza. Then of recent I been at work for my friend Andrew Henry. But that don’t mean very many of us got all that close to them moun-tanes. While’st they was raised up all round us, we didn’t ever go to ’em.”

“Never?”

“Not once, no,” Washburn answered, kneeling beside Bass once again. “An’ when I was on my tromp with Ol’ Glass, we sure as the devil didn’t have us the time to go off lollygagging to look for no big buffler herds—man wants to keep his hair locked on, why—he keeps his head tucked into his collar out thar’ in that kentry. If’n he wanders off too much, the Blackfeet or them Rees yest might take a real shine to his skelp.”

“What’re these here Blackfeet, and them Rees?”

Washburn shuddered. “Rees? Damn ’em. Consarn them Blackfeet too! Baddest damn two-legged beasts God ever put Him on the face of the earth. Walkin’, talkin’,
killing things is what Blackfeet is. Some time back they struck ’em a bargain with the Englishers to keep our kind out. Over the y’ars they been doing their best to make it hard on fellers like Leeza an’ Henry dealing in the Crow trade.”

“Crow? The bird?”

Washburn guffawed as he rose, his knees cracking. “Crow are Injuns up in that Powder River an’ Bighorn kentry. My, my—them are purty warriors—but a small tribe of ’em. They hate the Blackfeet ever’ bit as bad as we do.” He turned as if to shuffle away, tugging at that greasy blanket coat of his. “Til be off to get your supper.”

“Maybeso you can find us something strong to drink too.”

Washburn’s eyes narrowed. “Ye sure yer up to gettin’ yerself bit by the same dog nearly chawed ye in half last night, Mr. Bass?”

Titus nodded, his head throbbing so—he was desperate, certain that only a little of the hair of that mongrel that had mauled him so badly would truly salve his pain.

“All right,” Washburn replied. “Only ye’ll swaller ye some victuals first. But I’ll vow ye I’ll bring us back some barleycorn. Yessir. Isaac Washburn is due him a spree! Been a few seasons since’t I was last anywhere near me this hull consarn city. The up-kentry whar’ I been winterin’ ain’t much the place fer good barleycorn whiskey and white-skinned women, no sir.” He leaned forward, his face stuck down near Titus’s, aglow with a red shimmer from the stove. “I’m sure a likely young feller like yerself can show Isaac Washburn whar’ I can go to dip my stinger in some white gal’s honey-pot … now, cain’t ye?”

He grinned lamely. “I get myself healed up here, Isaac,” Bass replied, “we’re gonna both go dip our stingers in the finest honey-pots a man can find for hisself right here in St. Louie.”

“Whoooeee!” Washburn exclaimed, slapping the barn wall with a flat hand as he stopped and whirled about there at the door, the bottom of his blanket coat spinning out like a wheel. “Sounds to it like ye damn well better get on the gallop and mend yer own self right quick, Mr. Titus Bass. I don’t ’tend on waiting too long, now that I finally
come back to St. Louie arter all these hyar winters of drinking bad-gut likker and wenching with red squaws. I owe meself a spree, young’un: white wimmens and good whiskey. An’ I’m invitin’ ye along fer the ride o’ yer life!”

At the mere thought of swilling down a whole lot more whiskey, his head pounded unmercifully, sharp pins stabbing right behind his eyes. Titus licked his swollen, cracked lips, wanting to feel hopeful about something, desperate to feel hopeful about almost anything—especially … what might lie out there.

Bass asked, “You really fixing to go on out yonder this year?”