“Them mountains we come through to get here?” Hooks inquired, digging a fingernail around inside the bowl of his clay pipe. Just then he struck a hot coal, sure enough, and jerked the finger out to suck on it like a child with a precious sliver or some such injury worth nursing.
Cooper quickly glanced round at the other three, then stared off to the high peaks bordering the sundown side of Park Kyack. “That be the direction a man takes him to mosey off to ronnyvoo, ain’t it?”
“Surely it is,” Bud agreed.
Cooper’s gaze landed on Bass. “What say y’ then, Scratch?”
“Say me to what?”
“Where away would y’ lead this bunch, if’n it was you callin’ the tune?”
Pulling the cane pipestem from his mouth slowly, Titus wiped the back of his hand across his lips thoughtfully. “Near as I recollect, there was many a stream in that country where a man would be smart to lay down his traps. Yessir, Silas. No two ways to it—that’s good country yonder for a beaver man.”
Cooper smiled as big as he had ever smiled, here with his plans given such credence. “Damn straight, Scratch. By bloody damn, boys! This here greenhorn pilgrim we come across’t last fall h’ain’t so wet ahin’t his ears no more now.”
“But afore we go and tramp off to this here Ashley’s ronnyvoo,” Scratch replied, “it’s plain to me we best be taking our time through that high country.”
“Take … taking our time?” Cooper asked, all but incredulous.
“Damn, but there’s a ronnyvoo ain’t a one of us wanna miss!” Hooks whined, worry in his eyes.
Titus looked at Billy, then at Tuttle. “You’re cutting a trail through beaver country to reach ronnyvoo, ain’cha?”
Bud nodded, but Billy glanced at the dark-faced Cooper.
Silas said, “So, Scratch—what fur y’ got to rub with me?”
“We’re up there anyways,” Titus began, “so let’s set us some traps. Catch us some beaver on the tramp.”
Hooks grinned, then scratched at the side of his face when he asked, “What you think of that, Silas?”
Warily, the way an animal might react as it kept itself from being backed into a corner, Cooper said, “If’n there’s time, ary a man’d be struck with the stupids what he didn’t try to trap what beaver he could.”
Tuttle picked at a scab on his nose while the light sank out of the sky. “For balls’ sake—ronnyvoo’s still a far piece off. Take our time getting.”
Hooks nodded amiably, saying, “Maybeso we ought’n head there straight off.”
“No,” Tuttle corrected, “plenty of time till ronnyvoo, more weeks’n I care to count.”
Billy’s shoulders sagged in disappointment. “I was hankering for that trader’s whiskey—just to talk of ronnyvoo!”
“Soon enough, Billy,” Silas replied, then turned to Bass. “Just how full was y’ fixin’ to get your beaver packs?”
“Full as I can,” Bass answered. “I go through a piece of country what looks to be crawlin’ with them flat-tails … I say let’s drag what critters we can outta the streams on our way.”
“Boys”—Cooper brightened of a sudden as he called out in his booming voice—“looks to be we took us on a greenhorn last autumn, and now we got us a master trapper as our partner, don’t it?”
“Har! Har!” Tuttle exclaimed. “Scratch is a damn sight better trapper’n me—”
“Wouldn’t take much for that!” Hooks gushed, belly-laughing.
Bud frowned. “An’ I’d care to lay a set that he’s some better’n you, Billy Hooks!”
The wide smile was whisked from Billy’s face as Hooks looked over at Cooper.
Silas said, “I daresay Bud might well be dead center, Billy. Scratch awready got better’n you.”
“Awright,” Hooks replied with a single nod of his head, “then you the only one he ain’t a’bettering—right, Silas?”
Cooper regarded Bass a moment. “For now, Billy. For now I’m still the best in this here trappin’ outfit.”
Hooks inquired, “What haps when Scratch gets better’n you, Silas?”
His eyes narrowing, Cooper chewed over that a moment, then replied, “It don’t mean a thing’s gonna change, Billy, This here still be my outfit—no two ways about it. No man take it from me. Y’ understand that, Bud?”
Turtle’s eyes hugged the ground. “I figger I know how your stick floats, Silas.”
Cooper continued. “Good. Might’n be some man pull more beaver’n me outta the water … but that don’t mean he’s man ’nough to lead my outfit.”
Hooks grinned all over again, like he had come up with it in the first place. “You ain’t got balls enough to lead this outfit, Scratch! Not man enough to take it ’way from Silas!”
“Never said I was,” Bass defended. “Silas asked me a question, and I tolt him I was fixin’ to trap me a bunch more beaver on the way to ronnyvoo.”
“Your packs is damn near the heaviest there is right now!” Tuttle exclaimed.
“Hush up, now!” Cooper ordered, slapping a hand down on Turtle’s forearm. “If’n we find we got more packs’n we can carry—then we just get us more animals to carry ’em.”
“More animals from where?” Billy asked.
“These here Yutas,” Cooper said with a grin. “Afore we pull out come morning, what say we buy us some more ponies?”
“Good idea, Silas,” Tuttle said. “You always was the thinkin’ man in this outfit.”
“An’ I allays will be, Bud. Don’t you ever forget that.” Cooper’s eyes left their faces as he peered over their shoulders. “Now, what y’ suppose these ol’ fellers got on their minds?”
The three turned, finding more than a dozen of the tribal elders and revered warriors headed their way, each of the Ute wrapped in a painted buffalo robe or in a blanket to which wide strips and rosettes of porcupine quills had been added.
By the time the old men came to a stop before the trappers, more of the village was gathering behind them. A lone man’s voice began to sing out, startling Bass. Other men quickly joined in the song, and women trilled their tongues.
“What’s goin’ on, Bud?” Scratch whispered to Tuttle.
“Dunno,” he answered with a shrug.
“I’d lay we’re big men to this here village,” Silas boasted as the song was coming to an end. “Something big up a stick to them.”
“Yessirreebob! Gonna have to come back one day soon to visit that li’l squaw again,” Hooks added, rubbing his groin with a grubby hand. “Been a fine thing, dipping into that honey-pot!”
When the last note of the song had drifted off toward the aspen and lodgepole pine surrounding their camp, the leader of the hunting party stepped forward. He gestured, wanting the four white men to stand.
As all four got to their feet, the crowd inched in even more tightly. Looking about him curiously, Titus studied the faces until he found Fawn, her young son, White Horse, clinging to her back, his little arms clamped around her neck. She smiled. And that went a long way to easing his apprehension.
One man after another began to speak in excited tones, some waving their weapons, others rattling a shield; then the hunting-party leader waved forward the old man Titus remembered from his delirium.
“That one says he knows y’,” Cooper said, translating some of what was being said as the wrinkled one began to speak haltingly.
“I recollect he does,” Bass said. “Name is Crane. Him and Fawn got me through the fever of my wounds.”
Cooper turned an ear toward the talk. “Y’ recollect any of what he said to y’ when you was took with fever?”
“Nary a thing,” Titus admitted.
“Seems to me this bunch figgers you was the big bull in that scrap,” Cooper explained.
“I heard some talk of it my own self,” Bass said. “Understood part of it—but it don’t make no sense to me.”