As anxious as he was to rendezvous with them, Bass had figured he would reach the reunion site far ahead of schedule, so he had turned back a bit on the compass and headed south by east toward Park Kyack—fondly remembering that high mountain valley and the Ute band. Recalling the widow and the warmth of her blankets.
But as much as he searched the familiar ground, there was no sign of the tribe, nor much evidence of what direction they had taken. On occasions as he worked his way through the valley, Bass crossed the trail of a hunting party, perhaps a raiding party—unshod horses of one and or another haunting this high country. The one old camp he came across showed him where the Ute had likely moved out of the valley, heading north by west to hunt both the buffalo and antelope they would not find here in Park Kyack.
Staring down at the cold, blackened rings of those lodge fires, the remains of drying racks, the litter of camp life, he had grown lonely, so lonely again. It hurt every bit as much as when he watched the three float off down the river and around the far bend in the Yellowstone. The Ute had been here. But after hoping to find them … to find her … the loneliness inside made him want to disbelieve the Ute had been here at all, had crossed this ground—so close, yet no more.
Then he realized he was sore in need of seeing another human face, hearing another human voice, watching a smile emerge and eyes twinkle when they looked back at him. As much as he cherished the solitude, loved the aloneness, and savored being beholden to no one but himself … Titus yearned terribly. Yearned for faces and voices and laughing eyes. Hungered for the mere touch of a hand in his, perhaps the arms of a friend around his shoulders, even the mouth of a woman pressed against his as he tasted her breath and felt himself stir to readiness.
From time to time after reaching the beautiful valley, he stopped a day or so to lay his traps. But as well as he did, the pelts were poor compared to what a man could catch in-winter or early spring.
“Beaver always come to bait in this here country,” he spoke out loud one night at his fire, surprised to hear the sound of his own voice. “Come to bait they do: just as sure as a man’d lay down his money on a St. Louie whore’s feather bed so’s to get hisself a proper forking.”
It was pretty country, to be sure. No wonder the Ute felt so strong about it—were prepared to defend it the way the Crow defended their Absaraka.
That was just the way he got to thinking a few weeks later after pushing up and out of Park Kyack, wondering if it weren’t the same with those tribes along the Upper Missouri. Would they defend their land and the river that ran through it from a trio of white men floating down to a distant trading post? If those lone men were heading on out of that tribe’s precious country, why wouldn’t the warriors just let the trio pass on by? Or would they realize that the mere sight of white men meant the possibility of plunder, not to mention the presence of guns and powder to be stolen? And Bass knew, in the marrow of him, that might well prove to be enough of a temptation to spell the trio’s doom.
Dropping down out of the high country again, driving that herd of horses and mules north by west, constantly keeping his eyes moving along the far skyline, watching the distant ridges, staying to the long stretches of timber that bordered every stream and creek and riverbed so that he wouldn’t stand out with that cavvyyard he had stirring up a cloud of dust behind him. Then, at long last, he reached the banks of the Green as summer was growing all the hotter and the days had become their longest. For weeks upon weeks now he had counted upon laying his eyes on this river. For here was the place, and now was the time, the four would rejoin.
He waited.
The mosquitoes grew thick there in the valley of the Green as summer aged and the big bottle-green horseflies tormented the animals he was forced to move to new grass from time to time.
And he waited some more.
Scratch hunted, and watched the skyline for warriors. He rode out to the high ground northeast of where he maintained his lonely vigil and watched the skyline for Silas, Billy, and Bud.
Still he waited.
And each day he added a notch to a peeled wand of willow. So many days and notches now since he had watched the three of them float away—there were many such wands of willow stuffed down in his saddle pouch. More than he cared to count anymore. More than he cared to remind himself. Each time he did, the doubt crept back in.
He had waited long past the time Silas had calculated they would reunite.
Then he added notches he knew would put him past the time the traders’ rendezvous had come and gone at the south end of the Sweet Lake. With regret, and a growing anger, Titus tried to remember the faces of the merry Daniel Potts, mulatto dandy Jim Beckwith, young and randy Jim Bridger, and even crusty old Henry Fraeb. Faces he hadn’t seen in a year now, not since Willow Valley. Hard, tanned, wind-seamed faces and rough-edged voices brought easily to laughter with the tall tales he wouldn’t share now for at least another year.
Unless he went, and now. Yes, perhaps some of the brigades might still be in that country close by the Sweet Lake. Wouldn’t be no trick at all to find where the hundred or more had camped and traded, drank and reveled together. Wouldn’t be no hard task to seeing how they had split up and moved out, what direction the brigades were headed. He might catch up, spend a few days among the company of one brigade or another. Just to have the sound of voices and laughter in his ears.
After all … it was plain to see that Silas and Billy and Bud had been rubbed out. Somehow he had to accept that he was on his own hook once more.
Perhaps they hadn’t made it all the way down the Yellowstone and then the Missouri to that trader’s post called Vanderburgh’s. Then again—they might well have made it there and traded all the furs, only to be rubbed out coming across all that country where the Arikara and Pawnee and Arapaho could jump a few white men hurrying back to the mountains. Leastways, that’s something Isaac Washburn had known of firsthand. The country where Scratch’s three friends were to cross was the same stretch of high plains where Ol’ Gut and Hugh Glass had barely escaped with their hide and their hair.
As much as he stared into the small fire he built himself for company every night, as much as he watched the water flow by in the Green every day—the feeling inside him had grown no more comfortable, no more easy to accept until he was ready to let it go. To hell with the furs. There’d always be beaver in the mountains and high valleys. Besides, he still had his traps and other truck. By God, Titus thought, he was still in the business of trapping.
So to hell with all that prime beaver he had dragged out of countless frozen streams, beaver stretched and scraped, beaver packed in hundredweight bales and finally lashed down on that crude raft that disappeared down the Yellowstone with Silas Cooper.
Only thing that mattered was that he’d lost three friends. Lost the three men who had damn well saved his life.
Down in his belly that eventual acceptance of it brought up the gorge that nearly choked him after all these years: remembering how he had lost Ebenezer Zane. A trusted friend, a mentor Titus had looked up to, a man who had taught Bass not just about the great rivers, but about life on the river—women and rum, song and friends.
Then he remembered Isaac himself. How the graying trapper had done all that he could to keep Bass from liking him there at first, but come to love him Titus had. To trust Washburn enough to plan on following him west into the unknown. Then Gut was taken from him too. Gone as suddenly.
After all these winters and summers healing over those two painful scars of loss, now he had to face the loss of three more. Silas, Billy, and Bud ripped from him.