“Too late?”
“Listen, Titus Bass,” Cooper said as he came over to kneel beside Titus, “this critter’s in some terrible pain. And when a body’s in pain—it’s allays best to put it right outta its misery, ain’t it?”
Lord, he fought not to sob, especially when Cooper leaned over to put an arm around his shoulder, just the way his grandpap used to do. Bass could feel the tears sting as they started to well in his eyes.
“Y’ll get along just fine—won’t he, Bud?” Silas offered.
“That’s right, Titus,” Tuttle replied, pushing some of his long sandy-blond hair back out of his eyes. “Where’s your other horses?”
“Other … other horses?” Bass asked dumbly.
Cooper asked, “Y’ got mules?”
“I ain’t got no other’ns.”
Billy shrieked with sudden unrestrained belly laughter, clamping a hand over his mouth when Cooper shot him a stern, disapproving look.
Then Silas was tugging Titus up. “Bud, gimme a hand getting Titus up on his feet. Here, son—that’s it, Titus … y’ don’t wanna go down like your only horse there, now—do you?”
As much as Titus tried to think of speaking, of what to say, of what the hell to do, his mouth just wagged wordlessly.
“Y’ mean to bald-face tell me you come out here to the mountains with one horse only?” Cooper inquired.
“Started off with two from St. Louie,”
Tuttle asked, “So what happed to the other’n?”
“Lost it—crossing the Platte.”
“Spring flood?” Billy asked, that big grin brightening his face.
With a shake of his head Titus shrugged and replied, “Don’t know—bottom just gone out from under us and we … this mare and me, we barely swum ourselves out.”
“Y’ ever find the other horse?”
He looked at Cooper and nodded. “Dragged the saddle off’n it. Was a Injun pony.”
“Injun pony?” Tuttle asked, concern on his face. “What sort of Injun pony?”
“Don’t rightly know. Just that it come down from Fort Kiowa with a friend of mine.”
“Friend?” Billy asked.
“Isaac Washburn. The Injun pony was his.”
“And this here mare’s yours?” Silas said.
Bass looked down at the horse. She flailed that rear leg about again, only this time with a much more feeble movement. “She was give me by a man in St. Louis.”
Cooper flung his long arm around Titus’s shoulder, saying, “A good horse this was, Titus Bass, weren’t it?”
“She got me here—all the way here.”
Then he felt what Cooper suddenly pressed into his belly. Slowly he looked down and saw the pistol pushed against his blanket coat. Fear knotted cold in his gut.
“Take it, Titus Bass,” Cooper demanded. “Finish off the god-blamed animal, y’ idjit. Cain’t y’ see she’s in some awful pain?”
“F-finish?”
“Shoot her!” Billy cried. “She’s dying anyways—so, shoot her now!”
“I … ain’t there nothing can be done?” he begged of Cooper, turning toward the tall man, trying to push away the pistol the tall man shoved into his belly.
“Not when a critter’s gone and got black water,” Cooper said quietly, his big, beautiful eyes gone sad and limpid. “Once a horse goes down with black water—that critter ain’t never getting up on his legs again. Y’ cain’t be squampshus about it. Time for y’ to do the decent thing, Titus Bass.”
“I can’t shoot her,” he pleaded. “Don’t have me no other horse. This here’s the only one—”
“Gimme the goddamned pistol, y’ weasel-stoned pup!” Cooper growled angrily as he yanked the weapon from Bass’s hand and dragged back the hammer.
“No!” Titus bellowed, hurling himself at the man’s long, powerful arm. “No—don’t you see if it’s to be done, I’m the one gotta do it?”
Cooper looked down at him with those long-lashed, limpid eyes of his that Bass was sure could hypnotize lesser men. “That’s right, Titus Bass. Now you’re showing a lick of good sense: see that you’re the one what’s gotta do it—if’n you’re man enough.”
“The nigger ain’t man enough!” Billy cried, sidestepping a little jig in eager anticipation. “Ain’t man enough!”
“Shuddup, Billy!” Tuttle ordered. “Leave ’im be.”
With gratitude Bass glanced at Bud Tuttle and found there in the man’s homely face something that said he understood Bass’s reluctance—something that said he just plain understood.
“I’ll do it … if’n there’s no other way,” Bass reluctantly said.
Cooper and the others backed away a few steps. Then Silas said, “She’s been good to y’. Now’s time for y’ to return that good, Titus Bass. Take her outta her misery.”
With two trembling hands he pulled the hammer back to full-cock, brought the muzzle down to aim at a spot behind her ear.
“Y’ might miss there,” Cooper advised. “Go up on her head,” and he jabbed with one long finger at a spot midway between the eyes—up between the eyes and the ears. “Horse got it a little brain … y’ don’t put that ball into it just right, y’ gonna cause the mare all the more pain, Titus Bass.”
Still trembling, he moved the muzzle to that new target, trying to hold it on the spot Cooper described.
“Nawww—hold it again’ her head,” Silas instructed. “Now, y’ want one of us to go and do—”
“No! I’ll … I’ll do it,” he interrupted, forcing down the stinging bile that gathered at the back of his throat as he brought the muzzle squarely against the mare’s forehead. Titus glanced one more time into that one wild, bloodshot, pain-crazed eye, then closed both of his and pulled back on the trigger.
The pistol leaped in his hand, and he sensed the immediate splatter of warm blood across his bare flesh as he keeled backward with instant regret—not wanting to look, not daring to open his eyes until he had turned away. Bass held the pistol out at the end of his arm, loosely in his grip—hoping one of them would take it.
Cooper swept the weapon out of the hand before it dropped, looping his other arm over Bass’s shoulder. He almost cooed, saying, “Y’ done good by her, Titus Bass. I allays said a man’s only as good as he is to his animals. And y’ done right by your mare.”
“Tough thing you did—but the right thing,” Tuttle added.
“Weren’t nothing to laugh at, Titus,” Billy said. “Sorry I am I laughed at you.”
“The world’s a merry place to Billy Hooks,” Silas replied. “Y’ just gotta understand him is all, Titus Bass.”
He peeled himself from under Cooper’s arm and trudged over to his rekindled fire. There he squatted on his hands and knees, feeding the coals until he had more warmth from the flames.
“Whyn’t you two go fetch up the animals?” Cooper instructed somewhere behind him.
“Sure, Silas,” Tuttle replied. “C’mon, Billy. Let’s go fetch up the horses.”
Hooks came bounding up on foot to stop near Bass’s shoulder as he asked, “Silas—ain’cha gonna give one of our Injun ponies to this here Titus Bass feller?”
“I s’pose it’s the thing to do, don’t y’ figger?”
“Yessirreebob!” Billy replied. “I do figger so. He needs him a horse, and we got alla them what we took off them red niggers few days back.”
“R-red niggers?” Titus repeated, looking up to the faces of the three standing over him.
“Injuns, Titus Bass,” Tuttle replied. “C’mon, Billy.”
“Dirty, thieving red sonsabitches what tried to steal our ponies, our plews, and our scalps too!” Cooper growled as the other two started off into the shadows. The snow gathered on the shoulders of his blanket coat, lying there so stark against the gleaming black of his long hair that spilled over his shoulders, tangled in with his long, dark beard.