Was that all a man worked for? Bass wondered. Did a man force himself through endless hours standing up to his crotch in the icy streams only to earn himself some two weeks of revelry with whiskey and women and wildness? Was there nothing more to what days were granted a man?
Such brooding thoughts troubled his head as Titus chopped down aspen saplings for float-sticks, peeling each before sharpening one end, then lashing them together in a bundle for the next day’s sets. These were matters rarely considered by most men adrift here early in the far west. By and large they were of a breed who existed in the here and now, and that was all that concerned any of their kind. That day, perhaps the next, maybe even those thoughts of how fast the summer rendezvous was approaching … those were the only concerns of most trappers: survival, and that which lay on the immediate horizon for a man—what to eat the next time their bellies rumbled, where to lay their blankets and robes the next time they grew weary, where to find water and grazing for their stock …
But never, never, never did any of the rest want to talk again about what Bill Williams had stirred up within Titus Bass. And as the days rolled past in slow, easy succession, Scratch was beginning to believe the others refused to talk about those uncertain, frightening matters because such talk stirred up feelings better left untouched within each of Hatcher’s men. Simple men. Iron-hard, hand-forged men. The sort not easily given to ruminations on life and death and what might exist beyond one’s grasp.
A man lived. Then a man died. So be it.
Yet as many times as Bass tried to convince himself he should put such notions out of his mind, those notions grew more troublesome. After all, he spent so damned much time alone every day. Hours alone with only his thoughts, with matters that deeply pricked a man who had begun to fear he hadn’t spent near enough time listening to the stories his mother read her children from her Bible.
Did a man’s life tally up for no more than dumb luck? How else could he account for one man going under to nothing more than ticks … when he himself had been shot, scalped, and left for dead? Was it a roll of the dice or a lay of the cards that determined who lived and who died? Or … was it something more?
Was it as Williams explained it: that Titus Bass had been told plain as sun that there was a heap more living in store for the sort of man who survived a scalping by those intent on killing him?
For some reason unfathomable to a simple man, had Titus Bass been chosen not to die? Had he been somehow plucked from the grasping claws of death itself? Why had he been spared a fate that befell other men? Who were these capricious and fickle spirits deciding such things?
Who had yanked him from the gaping maw of death?
Were they at his shoulder then and there? And if he listened hard enough, would he hear them?
Climbing down off the bank, he waded upstream with the trap, float, and bait sticks.
So many questions.
Quickly scraping out a shelf for the trap a few inches below the surface of the stream, Scratch positioned the trap and strung out the chain, driving the long, pointed sapling into the graveled creekbottom. Returning the small ax to the back of his belt beside the knife scabbard, he moved downstream toward his rifle and pouch.
At the sharp-sided bank he hoisted himself onto the grass and sat there dripping, finally settling back against the tree trunk where his rifle leaned.
Too many questions.
He would try listening. Williams had claimed a man might just hear the other side if he listened hard enough. The breeze stirred the leaves around him a moment; then the quakies settled. In that momentary silence he strained to listen. Then felt the air move around him unexpectedly. Almost as if it were something of substance … some one touching his shoulder.
Scratch turned, expecting to find … but there was nothing.
He sighed and went back to listening. The breeze came up again, rustling through the aspen leaves overhead. Stirring all the trees around him as he gazed out upon the floor of the valley. When his eyes began to droop, the wind chuttered among the leaves—murmuring, almost whispering.
“Bass.”
Alert anew, eyes open, Scratch turned this way, then that. Listening. The breeze stirred again.
“Bass.”
Slowly he raised his face to peer overhead into the branches cluttered with tiny, trembling green leaves.
“Bass.”
Only the breeze nudging the leaves just gently enough that he had imagined they were murmuring his name.
When he brought his gaze back down, Scratch spotted them.
Two riders across the valley floor. Not where he would expect to see any of the rest of Hatcher’s outfit. And the two were close enough … for him to see their long, loose hair and the feathers tossing on the breeze that had whispered his name through the branches overhead.
“Bass.”
The hair bristled at the back of his neck with that next chutter of the leaves.
For a moment he studied the sky above the two horsemen, on either side of them, the very air between them. Hopeful he would actually be able to see the ragged tear rent in that filmy curtain between the other world and his. Wondering if he would indeed be able to see for himself that crack in the sky through which these riders had suddenly appeared.
As the riders slowly approached the far bank of the stream, Titus leaned to the side and brought the rifle into his lap—snapping the frizzen forward to assure himself that the pan was loaded. Next he saw to the charge in his pistol, then stuffed its barrel back in his belt. The pair of horsemen stopped when he rose from the ground holding the fullstock rifle at his right hip, his finger gently nudging back the rear set trigger until he felt the sear engage.
Titus stared at them for what seemed like a long time, waiting for the two warriors to declare themselves as friend or foe, ready for when they would plunge off the far bank into the stream and rush him. Then as one of the horses began to paw and bob its head impatiently, a rider spoke, gesturing with his bow.
Bass let him finish what he had to say, then tried to explain, “I don’t know your tongue.”
Scratch put the fingers of his left hand to his lips, moving them directly out toward the warriors as he shook his head vigorously.
Passing the bow over his head, the horseman stuffed it within a quiver half-filled by arrows. With his hands freed, the Indian began to sign.
But those gestures weren’t making any sense, their being this far apart. Bass shook his head.
Apparently frustrated, the sign talker said something to the other, and they both nudged their ponies into motion.
Bass took a step forward, planting his feet as they entered the stream. He brought the rifle up, the cheekpiece braced between his bottom ribs and arm.
“Stop right there!”
Yanking back on their reins, both horsemen halted their ponies near the middle of the stream. Down the creek Titus heard the warning slap of a single beaver near that dam the creatures had been building over the last few days. More tails slapped the surface of the water; then it gradually grew quiet again.
So quiet, he heard the air nuzzle the quaky leaves above him.
“Bass.”
Again the sign talker tried. But now that he was closer, Scratch could see just what the warrior had to say in sign: with only the first two fingers of his right hand extended, the others closed in the palm, the Indian held the hand momentarily in front of his chin, the extended fingers pointing at the sky. Then he slowly moved the hand up until it was about level with the top of his head, slowly bringing them down to point at the white man. Several times he repeated the same gesture while Titus stared quizzically at the two.