Wind Walker (51 page)

“Ever’thing … ’cept your own dream,” Titus declared, almost in a whisper. “Like all the rest of these farmers, some shopkeepers too. They’re all goin’ west to snatch at a dream with both hands. An’ you can grab your dream too.”

“I-I gotta sleep on this,” Esau admitted with a wag of his head. “This is a big … big thing and my head is hurtin’ with it already.”

“Yes, you sleep on it,” Roman said reassuringly.

Scratch laid his hand on Esau’s knee, saying, “Like we awready told you, Shadrach an’ me come from Bridger’s post to see if’n we could find these folks a pilot what could take ’em on to Oregon country. Hell, maybeso it’s a bad idee askin’ you if you’d lead ’em. Mayhaps better off would be you tell us if there’s a old fur man still about, one what would make a better pilot for this company. Someone knows where the camping grounds are, where lie the best fords of the Snake—”

“I know where those are,” Esau declared.

“I reckon on what you’re saying: Not ever’ man is ready to lead all these folks to their dreams,” Scratch cautioned. “I feel bad we offered you something you don’t want, Esau.”

“Ain’t … ain’t that at all,” the black man replied with his own reluctance. “Just … that it’s a mighty thing to do all at once: leave my work, set off for a new home, start on my own—”

“Same as all these folks are doing,” Roman reminded. “None of us any different from you. We just need someone who’s been there before to help along the road.”

As Sweete moved back into the light among them again, he remarked, “Did I hear you right, Esau—said you’d been there twice?”

When the tall man had settled on a stump and picked up his half-filled plate, Esau repeated, “Twice’t.”

“Scratch,” Shadrach began, looking at his old friend, “I don’t know but maybe it’d be better Esau had someone to ride ’long to Oregon country with him.”

“So mayhaps he wouldn’t feel like ever’thing’s layin’ on his shoulders?” Titus asked, studying Sweete’s face for more clues to the mood of his old friend’s mind. “You reckon we could find someone to go along, someone to help Esau?”

Shad’s head bobbed eagerly. “Right. Someone to help pilot the train with Esau, someone what’s handy at most ever’thing a pilot’s got to do.”

Titus licked his lips and asked, “So all Esau have to do is help that pilot by tellin’ him where the next camping grounds is, or what ford to cross a river?”

“That’s ’sactly what I was thinking,” Sweete admitted.

Titus turned to the tradesman and inquired, “You know anyone like that, Esau?”

The Negro shrugged. “I dunno of any man hereabouts what could fill them shoes.”

“Not a soul around?” Titus repeated. “Not a single man who could give you a hand with trail savvy?”

Esau wagged his head again. “I don’t figger there’s much call for such a man this far along the trail to the Willamette.”

Turning then to look at his old trapping partner, Scratch grinned as he said, “Shadrach, you got any notion where we’ll find someone what could help Esau pilot this bunch to Oregon?”

Combing his beard with his greasy fingers, Shadrach swallowed and declared, “Matter of fact, I-I went off an’ asked Toote about just such a thing.”

“’Bout what?” Esau asked.

“’Bout us goin’ to Oregon, see some brand-new country for us both.” He turned to find Titus’s grin grown into a huge smile.

Scratch asked, “What’d Shell Woman say to your idee?”

“Said it was fine by her for us to get a gander at more new country. Maybe even have us a look at the big salt ocean too.”

Rising to his feet, Bass stomped over to drag Sweete to
his feet so he could throw his arms around the tall man. “I ain’t got no itch to see the ocean my own self—so one of these days you’ll have to come back to these here mountains so you can tell me if it’s all folks say it is.”

Shad pounded Bass on the back. “I figger to look up Meek an’ Newell while I’m in that country.”

“It’s been some years since they run off to make new homes in Oregon,” Titus said. “You gonna make yourself a home in that yonder land?”

“Naw,” and he gazed straight into Bass’s eyes. “This here’s our country, Titus Bass. Your eyes’ll see me coming back one day.”

“If’n we both still wear our hair.” Then Scratch turned to the tradesman. “So what say you, Esau Bass? Are you truly a free man? Would you care to make yourself one last journey to the Willamette with these here pilgrims?”

The black man swallowed hard, his brow furrowed in consternation. “Mr. Shadrach Sweete, you’re going along, positively sure?”

“Same as Titus Bass when he tells you something, you can count your blood on what I tell you.”

The Negro nodded and blinked. “You’ll pilot these white folks if’n I go along?”

“We’re both pilots, Esau.”

With a long sigh, the tradesman scratched at his graying head, then asked, “What if I figger to stay put right here?”

Shad glanced at Titus a moment, then returned his gaze to Esau. “I reckon I’ll have to lead this company to Oregon by my own self. Won’t be as easy as it’d be with you helpin’ me … but we’ll just have to make do.”

“This is a hard thing to think on,” Esau admitted. “I ain’t never had nothin’ near this hard to work on.”

“You sleep on it,” Bass said, “then tell us come morning.”

The wheelwright nodded tentatively. “Hard thing to turn my back on is you, Titus Bass—I never had much of anything till I was give a chance by you. That give me the courage to try another brave thing later on, when I come north to work for Hudson’s Bay. I got a good life now … so I
don’t know if I can be so brave to leave everything behind again.”

Sweete agreed, “A man’s got him the right to give such important doin’s a night to think on—”

“When you fixin’ to put away?” Esau asked.

The two trappers both looked at Roman. He stood and said, “Two days. Give everyone a chance to lay over and visit the fort, stock to graze and get their strength for the crossing.”

“Two days,” Esau repeated quietly.

That’s when Burwell stepped up to the black man to say, “Esau, I ain’t ever had much to do with … with your kind back to home in Missouri. Hell, till this evening when you come to supper with Titus, I’d never shook hands with a black man before. But … I just want you to know you ain’t alone when it comes to putting everything you know behind you and having to stare down something that gives even a brave man some doubts.”

Bass took a step closer to the two, gazing intently at his son-in-law’s face, feeling such a wave of deep admiration, and newfound affection too.

Roman took a step closer to stand right before the shorter wheelwright. “Back east, I tried my hand at what I figured was one brave thing after another … but nothing gave me the scares the way setting off on this journey did. What I want you to know while you’re thinking this over: There’s as many chances out there for a man as he dares take them chances. Hell, none of us can guarantee what waits for us on what’s left of that road to Oregon. The folks on this train watched stillborns and babes die, seen men shoot themselves with their own guns and a passel of good people die of the fever before we finally outrun the cholera too.”

Then he paused of a sudden, struck speechless as he looked at his father-in-law, his eyes glistening, before he said, “Esau … I even lost my youngest child a few days back, bit by a rattler. Better than most anyone, I know life doesn’t hold any guarantees for us but what chances men like you and me make for ourselves.”

As Amanda came up to stand at her husband’s left side, Burwell held out his big paw to the Negro. “I offer you my hand, Esau Bass. For what miles we got left to go, you can take your meals out of the same pot my family eats from, and throw your blankets down beside my young’uns, outta the rain and cold … from here on clear to the Willamette. Any man Titus Bass would ride with is a man Roman Burwell be proud to ride with too.”

Esau Bass’s eyes moistened as he gazed at Roman and Amanda with gratitude, reaching out to seize the big farmer’s hand. “I-I don’t know quite what to say,” he confessed in a quiet voice. “Ain’t been but three other white men ever give me a chance to make something of myself.”

Roman laid his left hand over Esau’s in a firm grip, saying, “If you’re brave enough to leave behind everything you got here at Fort Hall, the way all the rest of us left behind what we had, I’d be proud to call you my friend from here on out.”

Esau stared down at the big, hard-boned hands that encapsulated his, white enfolding black there in the soft flicker of firelight. His eyes slowly crawled back up to Burwell’s before he said, “Y-you sure you want ol’ Esau come along with you?”

“You have my hand on it.”

Smiling, the Negro blinked his pooling eyes. “I s’pose I better see to what needs lookin’ after back at the fort come morning … seeing how there’s only two days left before I’m bound away for Oregon with you brave folks.”

Times were in a man’s life, days passed so lazily. But on those occasions when he wished to hold the moments and hours prisoner in his hand—to stay time’s relentless march—Titus Bass stood helpless in the face of what lay just ahead.

Two days … all that was left for Titus Bass to romp with his grandchildren in the shade of the trees, or fish the waters of a nearby creek, and with the help of young Flea they made a little time to give Lemuel, Leah, and Annie their first bareback ride on a horse.

Not very long at all for Waits-by-the-Water and Shell Woman to spend some final hours before parting. A happy, expectant air of excitement hung over those last two days as both women struggled not to grow melancholy as the sad hour inexorably approached. While they had not been friends for all that long, they nonetheless shared the same life: married to men who had come west in search of beaver, men who now were groping to find their way in a changing world, men who had fathered their children, fully intending to bring up those half-blood youngsters in some world not quite white. Now it seemed that these two men and their families would be parting for a time. No one knew how long the journey and their stay in Oregon might last, least of all Shadrach.

“If’n there’s a place where ol’ beaver men are layin’ by,” Sweete had explained outside those dirt walls of Fort Hall, “that be Oregon.”

“Fair ’nough to see how it sets by you,” Titus had agreed reluctantly.

“An’ how it sets by Toote.”

Bass had nodded. “Maybeso there’s a new life waiting for you an’ your’n out there with Meek an’ Newell an’ the others too.”

“You tell Gabe I’ll be back,” Shadrach said dolefully. “I’ll be back one day.”

“Two of us keep our eyes on the skyline for you,” Titus assured.

“You goin’ on back to stay at Bridger’s post?”

Shaking his head, Scratch said, “We’ll go back there first, spend a li’l time. Tell Jim ’bout your plans an’ all, afore we start north for Crow country.”

“Winter up, or for good?” Sweete asked. “Where you figger on me findin’ you—”

“If’n you ever come back to the high Stonies?” he interrupted with his question. “Can’t say as where I’ll be come the fall, least off next summer. Just feel the pull to get back north to that country.”

“Country where Waits will birth another scrappy Bass child this winter!”

Titus smiled at that, sensing the warmth spread through his breast in great anticipation for the coming child. “We’ll get Magpie north where I don’t gotta worry ’bout no man stealin’ her away from her mama.”

“Purty as she is, there’ll be a passel of bucks steppin’ up to give you a herd of ponies and a kettle full o’ geegaws for her hand to marry.”

“An’ Flea’s comin’ to the age when both his head an’ heart will start turnin’ from the matters of a boy to the matters of a man,” Scratch remarked.

“You still got Jackrabbit, an’ that baby comin’—both of ’em keep you young for years, Titus!” Sweete cheered.

He looked at his old friend, remembering how sad it must be for Shad, knowing Toote could bear him no more children. Titus laid his hand on Sweete’s wrist, gripping it firmly as he said, “Make the most of these days ahead, Shadrach. These days to come with them two young’uns of your’n, with Shell Woman … and with your ride to Oregon to see what life has to offer you out there.”

Dragging the back of his hand beneath his nose, Sweete said, “Wish’t you was comin’, now that you’re mended up.”

With a grin, Scratch admitted, “If I was to give my wounded arse a long poundin’ on a saddle, it best be on a ride back to that north country, Shadrach. I ain’t got no business goin’ farther west. Amanda’s family an’ the rest of these good folks got ’em a fine pair of pilots gonna lead ’em all the way to the Willamette. No need for me to go on with you.”

“You fixin’ on waiting here till that California bunch comes in?”

Shrugging, he let go of Sweete’s wrist. “I reckon if I was meant to meet up with Hargrove again, we’ll do it somewhere on the road. I don’t need to wait around for it to happen here.”

“How you figger Harris will throw down his float-stick when you run onto ’em?” Shad asked about Hargrove’s pilot.

“’Less that nigger is drunk, I don’t figger Harris is gonna get hisself in the way o’ what’s mine alone to do.”

“You sure you don’t want us wait ’nother day or so till
they roll in here,” Shad offered. “It’d give you someone at your back with the two of ’em.”

Peering up at his friend’s crow-footed eyes, Titus said, “You’re the sort of friend the best of men deserve, Shadrach. Don’t know why you ended up my companyero—but I’ll just take it that you’re my friend for a damn good reason.”

“Ever’ man sticks up for his friends the way you do,” Sweete declared, “he deserves to have his back covered by them he’s helped.”

“Don’t fret ’bout lolly gagging ’round here with Roman’s train till Hargrove an’ his bullies get here. I’ve faced worse’n them. ’Sides, Waits and Magpie both purty damn good with a gun—so my women can cover my back if them bastards wanna raise some hell an’ put a chunk under it.”

No more was ever said about it between the two friends.

Then came the gray of that last morning together with family and old friends, before the parting, before some got on with the going on, and the rest got on with the turning back.