Wind Walker (3 page)

“Hold on there, you men!” he roared as he jerked the animal into a sitting position. “You heard him say he’s a white man.” Then he turned and flung his voice to that side of the camp where the shadow emerged from the brush at the base of the ridge. “How many are with you?”

Bass stopped and started to grin. With a shrug he held out his arms and replied, “Jus’ me. Ain’t no others.”

Lowering his smoothbore, the leader said, “C’mon over here.”

Less than two dozen men quickly surrounded Bass and the leader, who yanked the mitten off his right hand. “My name’s Bill Bransford.” The dog growled at the newcomer, so Bransford snapped, “Hush!” then peered at Bass. “We met before?”

“Not that I know of,” Titus said, stuffing his right hand under his left armpit and yanking off his thick blanket mitten. They shook. “My name’s Bass. Titus Bass.”

“I heard tell of you,” Bransford replied with a grin. “Sometime back, you was over to the big fort on the Arkansas with some other fellas and a big herd of horses you was sellin’.”

“You’re good at ’memberin’, Mr. Bransford.”

“Hell, I was a junior clerk back then. Brought my dog here out from St. Louis when I come to work at the fort years ago. So I well remember how you dickered on every last dollar for your horses, and ended up riding off with a couple of Charlotte’s puppies too.”

The remembrance of those fat, furry pups made him smile as another man stepped up. “Your name’s Bass?”

Titus instantly turned on the speaker, intrigued at something naggingly familiar in the clip to the stranger’s words, and replied, “Titus Bass.”

“You’re the one I heard who’s called Scratch?”

“That’s right. And what be your name?”

“Lewis Garrard.”

“Ever you spend time on the Ohio River?”

“Born in Cincinnati,” Garrard responded with a grin. “How’d you know?”

“I come from the Ohio River country my own self,” Titus explained. “Boone County, Kentucky. Thort I heard the ring of that country in your words.”

“I’ve come west looking for a little adventure,” Garrard remarked.

He asked Garrard, “How you get hooked up with these pork-eaters?”

“I was with William Bent, trading out to the Big Timbers, when word of his brother’s death reached us.”

Bass looked at Bransford again, eyeing the man up and down. “Knowed Hudson’s Bay had Fort Hall across the mountains, but I didn’t think John Bull’s boys ever come this far south. How come Hudson’s Bay got hooked up with them Bent brothers?”

Bransford spoke up defensively, “We ain’t no Hudson’s Bay!”

“So you claim you ain’t a John Bull
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outfit?” Titus inquired.

“No,” Bransford answered, looking mystified. “What made you think we was?”

“Laying out there in the dark, I was listening to them Frenchies palaver over yonder at that fire. Just figgered with them parley-voos along you was Hudson’s Bay.”

“William has him some Frenchmen working for him,” Bransford explained. “A few of ’em are hard workers. Like this bunch.”

“Where away you bound, headin’ south for the pass?” Titus asked. “You know there’s trouble south of here now.”

Garrard rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Just the sort of adventure I came west to find.”

Bransford motioned Bass to join them at the closest fire and said, “You’ll soon get all of the adventure you’re wanting, come the day we reach Taos, Garrard.”

“Taos?” Bass echoed in surprise. “So your bunch is headed for Taos?”

The leader turned on his heel and glared at Bass. “Sounds to me you know something of the bloodbath down that way.”

“I carried news of those doin’s all the way north to the Pueblo,” Titus declared sourly. “Kinkead and Fisher, the rest of ’em too, they set out with me the next day.”

“What are you doing up here if you returned to Taos?” Garrard asked.

“Decided it ain’t my fight.”

Garrard snorted. “Isn’t my fight either—but it’s bound to be one helluva time!”

Bransford leaned forward. “Why you wandering around out here by your lonesome?”

“Taking my family to Bents’ big lodge. Afore we push on north for Crow country.”

“Your family with you?” Garrard asked.

“That’s why I ain’t making that scrap in Taos my fight.” He pointed to the coffeepot at the edge of the fire pit. “You got something hot to drink?”

“Pour this cold man a cup,” Bransford ordered. “We’re on our way to Taos, maybeso to help the soldiers and those fellas from Fisher’s fort put down this revolt.”

Scratch watched the hot liquid hiss into a tin cup he held out, steam rising into the cold air. “Ain’t much any of you can do,” he explained quietly. “By now them murderers gone and butchered every white person in the area. They wiped out Turley’s mill.”

“Turley’s mill too?” one of the strangers repeated.

He nodded as he took a first sip of the hot coffee. “I’ll lay as how them greasers got their work done awready. No one left to save now.”

“William Bent wanted us to try,” Bransford declared.

“Bent hisself?” Bass echoed. “So Louy Simmons did make it after all.”

“Like Garrard told you,” Bransford nodded solemnly. “Simmons reached William when he was off trading at Big Timbers.”

Then Garrard spoke up. “I was right there with William, and old John Smith too—when Simmons came riding in with word that Charles was murdered.”

Titus turned back to Bransford and asked, “What’s this Big Timbers?”

“Place on the Arkansas—lots of cottonwoods—where William Bent’s wife’s folks, Cheyenne they be, where them Cheyenne camp out of the wind of a winter,” Bransford explained. “William rode right in the forty miles to the fort, ’thout stopping, soon as he heard tell of the revolt in Taos.”

He tucked the long, slender braid he wore in front of the left side of his face behind his ear and took another sip of the scalding coffee, then asked, “Bent’s gone an’ rode on ahead of you fellas?”

The leader shook his head. “Lord knows he wanted to—if only to find out ’bout his brother, how Charlie died. But
when Frank De Lisle came in with the company wagons from the company camp on the Picketwire, sure as hell that a greaser army was right behind him—Captain Jackson and his soldiers convinced William he should stay put at the fort to protect it against an invading mob. Jackson’s got him a small company to begin with—and now there’s a score or better of his soldiers too sick to stand for service. There’s less’n a dozen able-bodied men to guard them walls now that we’re marching for Taos.”

“Protect the fort? Ain’t no greasers gonna come this far north,” Bass snorted and savored the warmth of the coffee tin between his hands. “How ’bout them Cheyennes he married into? Didn’t them Injuns at the Big Timbers offer to whoop it on south and wipe out them greasers what kill’t Charlie Bent?”

“Damn right, them chiefs volunteered their warriors to do just that,” Bransford explained. “But William turned ’em down cold. Told the Cheyennes it was a white man’s problem, and the white man’d put it right.”

“Maybeso that’s square thinkin’,” Bass said quietly. “White folks caused the problem in Mexico—it’s right that white folks should fix things down there.”

“So you’re going to find safety in Bents’ Fort?” Garrard asked.

“I been there, twice’t now,” Titus said, turning to address the man. “But, my woman and our young’uns never been. I figger chances be a mite slim I’ll ever make it back down this far south—so I decided to show ’em the fort while we’re this close.”

“You tell William you run onto us,” Bransford said. “He could well use another good man while the rest of us is away.”

Scratch peered over that motley collection of some two dozen former trappers, Frenchmen, half-bloods, and free men. “I ain’t looking for to hire out to no man. Figgered we would camp nearby for a day or so before pushing on north for Crow country.”

“What’s the country like ’tween here and Taos?” Bransford asked.

“Snows blowed clear on most of the road,” Bass declared. “You’ll do well if’n you keep your stock watered and fed.”

“Had only five horses when we started out,” the leader said. “And they was owned by these five free men who decided to throw in with us. Got family down in Taos.”

Bass quickly glanced at the stock they had picketed close by, then asked Bransford, “How’d you come on the rest of your horses?”

“When we left the fort, we put our bedding and supplies in a small company wagon. Figured we’d get our hands on some mounts at the Bent brothers’ ranch aways up the Picketwire.”

“We was hoping them greasers hadn’t already raided and run off the horses afore we got to the ranch,” a voice called out from the group.

“No greasers showed up at all,” Bransford confided. “But a string of government teamsters was already holed up there, afraid to push on south for Taos until word reached ’em that the army had things under control down there.”

“You took the wagon horses from them teamsters?” Titus asked.

“Just the ranch stock,” Garrard said. “But them riding horses was what the teamsters wanted to hold on to, so they’d have something faster to make their escape than on those slow wagon teams.”

“It nearly came to shots fired before those teamsters let us ride off on the ranch horses,” Bransford snorted wryly. “Damn if they weren’t a scared lot. Tried to hold on to horses what belonged to William and Charles Bent in case they had to gallop on outta there with the Mexicans comin’ down on their asses!”

“But look around you, Mr. Bass,” Garrard roared. “Do these men look like the sort to walk off without those horses?” Most of the half-breeds and hard-cases laughed heartily. “Not after what they had been through to get to the ranch on foot!”

Bransford went on to explain how his bunch had been hampered for more than a day when they were forced to take shelter during a howling snowstorm. Later, they hadn’t found much water in the dried-up creekbed of the Timpas—and what little they scratched up was so laced with alkali that even coffee was undrinkable.

“For two nights we were without anything that would burn for firewood,” Garrard explained. “Bill here offered to let me sleep with him and share our blankets—but first we had to convince his damn dog!”

“Back when we reached Hole in the Rock, we thought we had Injuns or Mexicans slipping up on us,” Bransford said. “That’s when my dog here set up a awful bark. Must’ve only been a coyote or some other critter.”

“You fellas gonna find yourselves in greaser country soon enough,” Bass sighed, then blew across the surface of his coffee again. “Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled back—ain’t likely this bunch will lose their hair.”

“Where you leave your family?” the group’s leader asked.

“Back ’round the end of the ridge aways.”

“Go fetch ’em and bring ’em here to spend the night.”

“Naw,” Titus replied, then took a long gulp of the coffee. As he tipped up the coffee tin to drain the last sip, the decorative beads suspended from his long ear wires clinked against the rim of the cup. “Time I get back, them young’uns gonna be sleeping.”

“That’s a shame,” Garrard admitted.

Bass stood and held out his hand to the adventurer. “Grateful for the coffee, and the palaver too.”

“Thanks for your news on Taos,” Bransford said as he stood and they shook. “Maybeso we’ll run onto you up to Bents’ some day.”

Scratch wagged his head and set his empty cup down near the fire ring, then tugged his coyote fur cap down so that it covered the earrings dangling from both lobes. “Don’t figger that’ll happen. Sure enough we’ll stop by there to let my family have a look-see in the next few days, but I can’t think of a thing ever gonna bring me this far south again.”

As Titus Bass started out of the circle of strangers, Bransford called out, “Watch your topknot!”

He stopped, turned, and patted the back of his well-worn coyote fur cap. “I been skelped once’t awready. Got more holes in this ol’ hide than I care to callate. I aim to ride out for that north country, where this nigger won’t have to worry ’bout them what wants to lift his topknot. I aim to live out all the rest of my days up where a man can die at peace, fellas. I reckon I’ll die a old man wrapped up in my buffler robes.”