The old man pointed at Titus, waving him forward.
“G’won, now, Scratch.” Tuttle prodded him with a shove of his hand.
As the old one started to speak again, he carefully removed two scalps from the pouch he wore slung over his shoulder. With one held aloft in each hand, the pair tied together with one long whang of leather, he began to tell the story of the hunt for food to fill the hungry bellies in their village, a hunt where they discovered sign of enemy Arapaho once again come trespassing on Ute land.
“There was no time to prepare for battle,” the old man known as Crane explained, telling the crowd what must surely have been a well-known story by then. “No time for paint. No time to smoke one’s pipe, only enough time to sing a prayer—before the Arapaho came down upon us.”
Wild shouts erupted from the full ring of onlookers. Men yelped and women keened until the old man shook the scalps again, ordering quiet.
“In the battle that took four of our friends, uncles and nephews to us all—one man among our hunting party displayed great bravery!”
Again they raised their voices in shouts of joy.
“Now at last the time has passed for mourning,” the wrinkled one declared. “We can celebrate the courage of our friends who helped save our people. Their guns helped win the day for our people!”
As more cheers rolled over the trappers, men and women alike leaned forward to pound the four white men on the backs and shoulders in congratulation.
“Yet there is one among them who showed more bravery than all the rest in the face of those enemy when they attacked us from behind!”
Now the crowd grew strangely quiet as the old man turned slowly, slowly about, the scalps still held at the end of his outstretched arms.
“He is the only warrior that day to take two enemy scalps! Two!”
Suddenly Bass found the pair of scalps held before his face as the old man shook them violently.
“This is the hair of our enemy!” Crane cried out to the crowd in his quavery voice—answered by great shouts leaping from more than a hundred throats. “Two enemy warriors are naked of hair in the beyond land now!”
Wheeling, the old man dropped the leather thong over Bass’s head so the two scalps hung around his neck, high on either side of his chest.
“The courage of this white man saw his feet through on his terrible journey into the dark country, so deep were his wounds. He returned to us, granted life by the life-giver of us all. We give our thanks that he was spared for us: a true friend of the Ute, and sworn enemy of the Arapaho!”
Now again the leader of that hunting party stepped forward and put his arms around a stunned Titus Bass, hugging him once before he turned to address the crowd.
“As we planned, this is to be a night of celebration. Women! Bring out the meat! Children! Open a path for the men of this camp! Come, everyone! Celebrate tonight, for our white friends depart in the morning!”
As some in the crowd surged close and began to nudge the trappers along toward the center of the village, Cooper leaned close to Titus. “Y’ get all of that, Scratch?”
“Maybeso enough.”
“You’re some big coon to these here red niggers,” Silas grumbled.
“A big, big shit!” Hooks echoed with that ready grin of his.
“Ain’t done nothing special,” Bass replied, trying to make less of this spontaneous celebration in his honor.
“Y’ something big up a stick to them,” Cooper argued. “But mind y’—don’t ever go figgering you be as savvy as me, hear? Don’t ever y’ figger y’ can outtrap, outfight, outsquaw Silas Cooper! Y’ got that, ‘Rapaho-killer? Y’ got that?”
“I … I don’t aim to take nothing away from you—”
“Tell me, Bass! Right here an’ now,” Cooper interrupted. “Don’t y’ ever try to stand head to head with me like y’ done once.”
“Silas always give a man one chance to show his stupids,” Hooks proclaimed. “What Silas always says: give ever’ man one chance to show he can be a dead fool.”
“Billy’s right, Scratch,” Cooper reminded. “And y’ done had your chance back up there near Buffalo Pass when y’ laid your hand on me.”
Bass flinched with another look into Cooper’s cold black eyes. Almost a good head taller than Bass, and with some eleven or twelve years on him too. “I understood you, then, Silas. An’ I don’t fix on ever giving you cause to raise a hand to me. Not among friends.”
“That’s right, ’Rapaho-killer!” Cooper roared, flinging his long arm over Titus’s shoulder so suddenly that it surprised Bass as they came to a halt at the center of camp with the others. “We’re friends, ain’t we? Friends allays take good, good care of each other!”
The tight ring about the trappers loosened as women and men alike began to throw down blankets and robes, seating themselves around the huge fire ring as women came forward bearing rawhide platters heaped with boiled meat and roasted marrow bones, sections of stuffed elk gut and minced slices of raw liver one could dip into tiny bladders filled with tangy yellow gall. Everywhere folks began to talk at once, laugh together, sing out in merriment and exultation.
“Well?” Cooper demanded, turning on Bass, seizing Titus’s shoulders in his big hands and squeezing hard. “I asked y’. H’ain’t we friends?”
“Yes, Silas,” he said, trying not to wince with the pain the big man created in that left shoulder, a hot, deep pain where it had not yet fully healed. At the same time he was determined not to show Cooper, nor the others, just how much he hurt. “We’re friends.”
“Allays will be?”
Bass nodded. “Yes, always will be friends, Silas.”
“Good man!” and Silas pounded Titus on the top of the shoulders. “What say we stuff our gullets full this night, fellas … then each dog-man of us rut ary a squaw dry till mornin’ light when Silas Cooper’s outfit pulls out for the high country!”
“Womens tonight!” Hooks cheered. “Aye—an’ the high country tomorry!”
Full as a tick about to burst he was as he waddled back to Fawn’s lodge that night long after moonrise. He cradled the boy in his arms on that walk, then laid the sleeping youngster among the blankets where the widow made a warm nest for the child. Titus stood looking down on them both as she tugged up the buffalo robe, then turned and stood before him.
There in the red-hued glow of the dying fire, Fawn freed the sash from her worn blanket coat and flung them both to the far side of the lodge, her eyes never leaving his. Then with her left hand she pulled at the ties on her right shoulder, doing the same at her left shoulder, loosening the top of her dress enough to slowly slide the skins down over her arms, tugging the garment on down over her breasts, then down her rounded belly and hips, finally to let it spill off her thighs to lay in a heap around her ankles like that last, old snow withdrawing in a ragged ring around the trunk of every aspen, lodgepole, and patch of sage in the surrounding hills.
He found his mouth bone dry as he watched what the dim flicker of the last limbs and glowing coals did to the dark hue of her brown flesh. His eyes savored the roundness to her, the full sway of her breasts as she stepped on out of her dress, the soft, full curve of her hips as they molded back to her full bottom.
Just before she moved into him, Bass gazed down at the dark triangle of hair there where her thighs blended into her rounded belly. Then she pressed herself against him, arms encircling his waist, cheek buried against his chest.
Pushing her away slightly, Titus hurried out of his coat with a shudder of excitement—then yanked his shirt over his head as she hastened to pull at the buckle, loosening his belt so that breechclout and leggings fell together. She knelt immediately, tugging at his moccasins, eagerly yanking at the leggings in a rush of motion, her eyes crawling up his legs to where his flesh began to throb and grow in anticipation of her.