So still was the camp and the horseshoe of trees where the tribe had raised their lodges two days back that Bass easily heard the snore of more than one of the men bundled on the ground at the nearby fire. At least a dozen of them in all, wrapped in robes and blankets, their feet close to the coals like the spokes of a wheel. One—it looked to be Rufus Graham—lay sprawled flat on his back, wheezing like the bellow of a two-stack river steamboat, what with missing his four front teeth, both top and bottom. On either side of him lay Shoshone warriors wrapped up like woolly caterpillars in their furry buffalo robes, sleeping despite Graham’s noisy serenade. Beyond, over near one of the other trappers, lay a warrior curled in a tight ball, having nothing more than a heavy saddle blanket to cover himself from shoulder to hip.
Bass sighed, closed his eyes, and went to press his cheek back against the thick fur of the stiffened green buffalo hide beneath him when he heard the quiet footsteps. Out of the murky gray of predawn shadows between the far lodges emerged a tall figure wrapped in a blanket coat, his hood pulled up so that it hid most of his face. A bundle of firewood he dropped beside the fire pit before he swept back the hood.
Scratch recognized him as the young warrior who had followed him in yesterday’s procession, Hannah’s handler. As he watched the warrior at the fire, Bass figured it must have been a high honor to be near the white man who’d brought the white buffalo calf, an honor to be placed in charge of the white man’s mule too, Titus figured as he watched the warrior break off limbs and feed them to the glowing coals. A time or two the Shoshone bent over the coats, blew, and excited the new wood to burst into flame. When he had the fire beginning to climb, the young man rose, held his hands over the heat a moment, then turned his head.
Finding Bass watching him, the Shoshone smiled and immediately came over to the travois, picking up a small skin pouch filled with water that lay nearby. This he offered to the white man. Bass took a swallow, finding the water some of the best he could remember ever tasting. Cold and sweet. Like that he remembered in the high country. So good on his tongue and the back of his throat that again he drank until he could drink no more. Letting his head plop back onto the buffalo hide, Bass sighed and found his eyes heavy again as he rested the water skin across his belly.
In a matter of moments he opened his eyes again—the tap at his shoulder insistent.
Beside him stood the young warrior, holding on to the bail of a small cast-iron pot. Within it lay chunks of pink meat cooked last night.
Nodding his thanks, Bass gathered up a handful and brought one to his mouth. Although cold, the meat was tender, tasty. And exactly the sort of feed Titus figured he needed most to get back on his feet. Ain’t nothing like buffler, Isaac Washburn had told him what now seemed like so long ago. True enough—there wasn’t nothing like buffler, he’d found out for his own damn self, Bass thought as he chewed with nothing short of pure joy.
Then he suddenly realized how poor his manners had been. Around a chunk of meat Titus mumbled, “Thankee, friend.”
The warrior immediately squatted there at Scratch’s shoulder, patted himself on the chest and repeated the invocation, “Furrr-rend.”
“Yes, you … friend.” As he watched the warrior take a piece of meat to chew on for himself, Bass swallowed his bite and said, “Me: Titus Bass.”
His brow knitting with consternation, the warrior tried repeating that. “Ti … Ti …”
“Yes. Ti—tus.”
“Ti—tuzz.”
“Good. Now say, Ti—tus Bass.”
“Ti-tuzz Bezz.”
“No,” Scratch corrected. “Ba. Ba. Bass.”
“Ba-azz,” the Shoshone echoed, making two syllables out of the word.
“You’ll make the circle,” Bass replied, grinning.
“He won’t know what the hell y’ mean by that.”
Scratch turned his head to find Hatcher propped on his elbow, then rising to a sitting position to pull his blanket over his shoulders.
“He don’t know no American?”
“No, he don’t savvy no American,” Jack answered, inching toward the fire pit’s warm glow. “But he’s a right smart fella. Chiefs oldest boy.”
“Don’t say,” Bass replied, looking over the tall warrior’s face again, into those eyes.
“Stick yer hand out to him.”
“What? Why the hell I wanna—”
“Y’ gone an’ tol’t him yer name,” Hatcher began. “I figger y’ ought’n least shake hands with him.”
“Shake hands?”
“It’s just ’bout that nigger’s favorite thing to do,” Jack explained. “He thinks its some punkins, the way white men shake hands one with t’other. G’won, stick yer goddamned paw out to him, Scratch.”
A little warily, Bass held out his right hand, relieved to find that the arm and shoulder did not yelp in great pain as soon as the warrior seized the hand and began to shake it vigorously. They shook. And shook. Then shook some more.
Finally Bass looked over at Hatcher. “H-how long this fella gonna shake my hand?”
“I figger he’ll shake ’bout as long as yer gonna shake with him,” Jack answered. “Mebbeso, since he knows yer name, ye ought’n know his.”
“All right, Jack,” Titus said as he began to slip his hand from the Shoshone’s grip. “You gonna tell me what be this here feller’s name?”
“Titus Bass, meet your new friend,” Hatcher said, rubbing his hands together over the coals. “That there Snake goes by the name Slays in the Night.”
21
“Damn good thing it is too—ye starting to feel pert enough to try forking yer legs over a saddle, Scratch!” Jack Hatcher said cheerfully a few mornings later as he dragged his blanket over his back so he could hunker down near the flames he fed a few pieces of wood, then held both palms over. “Be getting time to head for the high country soon, that for sartin.”
With each morning that the air became a little colder, Bass did feel a growing anxiety to be away and once more at that endeavor in the mountain valleys. Lying here so weary, beaten, and pummeled in body—still mightily hungering in spirit for those high and lonely places. “I … I’m looking forward to making that tramp, Jack.”
“So ye figger to trap this fall, do ye?” Jack asked with a grin on his face where the stubbly beard was beginning to fill out.
“I do.”
But then again Scratch realized just how little he had to his name … which caused a little of the starch to seep right out of him. Embarrassed, he looked away from Jack, and instead stared at the fire. “Don’t have me much. What I do got, I know I’m no way near being fixed for high-country doings. After them ’Rapahos got off with nigh onto everything—ever since, I ain’t had me a chance to look at what I was left in Hannah’s packs.”
“Stands to reason ye ain’t yet looked,” Hatcher commented. “Why, the way ye was hanging on to that mule for yer life. Eeegod, child—ye was just hanging on to life itself!”
With a slight wag of his head, Bass sensed the sudden sting of loss and remorse pierce him. The loss not just of place and people left back east—but the great and weighty loss of friends, the loss of furs, and now the loss of most everything he’d worked so hard to call his own. “Shit, I don’t even know if I got traps, not what other truck I got in them packs—”
“Ye ain’t poor, nigger!” Hatcher interrupted with a snort. “Why, ye got yerself half-a-dozen prime traps! Square-jawed they be: strong of spring and some handsome pan triggers, I might add. Some of the finest handiwork this nigger’s seen. Any man got hisself traps an’ truck like that gonna make it just fine. Where’d ye come on them traps?”