“By jam,” Isaac said. “We can hang some wires in ’em!”
“Maybeso Scratch don’t wanna,” Caleb came up to say, patting a hand on Bass’s shoulder protectively. “S’awright—we can just wait till ronnyvoo an’ do it.”
“No,” Titus answered of a sudden. “By Jehoshaphat’s drawers: let’s punch them two holes!”
As if a horn of powder had gone off, there was a flurry of frantic motion as Rufus returned with the awl held aloft triumphantly. Hatcher began giving instructions while he stuffed the awl’s point down in the hot coals for a few minutes. Elbridge brought over a scrap of oiling rag to lay over the shoulder while they punched through Bass’s flesh. And Solomon went off to fetch a small coil of brass wire out of his plunder.
“Cut me two pieces,” Jack explained to Solomon as he returned. “Not too long neither.”
In minutes the others were ready, all of them crowding in on either side of Hatcher to get themselves a firsthand look at the operation on one of the ears.
“Turn this way,” Hatcher instructed, tugging on the right ear to turn Bass’s head.
Elbridge draped that old piece of oiling cloth over the right shoulder beneath the ear where Hatcher was pinching the lobe tightly between thumb and forefinger.
“Damn—how much you gonna hurt me like that?” Scratch growled, rolling his eyes back to try peering at Jack’s hand.
“I don’t pinch it like this,” Hatcher explained, “it’s gonna hurt worse when I punch the hole.” He looked up at Isaac. “Got that chunk of pine from the woodpile for me?”
Simms handed him a small sliver of kindling wood about six inches long and some two inches wide.
Jack held it near the tip of Bass’s nose momentarily. “This here pine’s good and soft, Scratch.”
His brow knitted suspiciously. “What you use it for?”
“Gonna put it ahind yer ear like this,” he answered, slipping the flat piece of kindling behind the lobe. “I do this so yer hide don’t tear on the backside. Keeps that skin flat when I’m punching through.”
“Y-you ain’t gonna tear my skin, are you?”
“Eegod! I done this more times’n I can ’member.” Hatcher turned to Simms. “Time to make some blood, boys. Gimme the awl, Isaac.”
Simms bent and retrieved the awl from the glowing coals. He swiped it free of ash across his longhandle sleeve, then blew on it for good measure.
“Them ashes don’t hurt nothing,” Caleb declared. “They’re cleaner’n most anything.”
Hatcher took the awl from Isaac. “Gonna punch the hole now, Scratch.”
“Awright. Go right on ahead.”
Looking at Fish to see that he held the two short sections of wire, Jack delicately placed the awl’s sharp point at the center of Bass’s earlobe. Only then did he move the fingers he had been using to pinch the lobe and numb all feeling from the tissue.
Although he did feel the awl’s point penetrate the lobe, Scratch heard the sound of the piercing more than he felt it.
“You hit it center, Jack,” Caleb said with approval.
“Damn if I don’t always hit center,” Hatcher replied. “Here. Gimme a wire.”
Jack passed the awl off to Isaac and took from Solomon a short length of thick brass wire the trappers employed for making a variety of repairs around camp: all the way from wrapping about cracked wrists and forestocks on their rifles to making strong, long-lasting repairs to saddles and other tack where sinew would likely break down and unravel.
“Isaac, set that awl back to the coals for me,” Hatcher instructed as he seized the short piece of wire near its end.
After wiping off a little blood that oozed from the new hole, Hatcher carefully poked the wire through to the back side. Quickly he bent the wire into a crude hoop without tugging on the lobe too much, then looped and twisted the ends back on themselves so that the hoop wouldn’t be falling out by any accidental rubbing.
“How’s that feel?” Jack asked as he began to pinch the left ear, nudging Bass’s head in the opposite direction toward the firelight.
“Don’t feel much of a thing,” Bass confessed, surprised.
“Awl,” Hatcher said as Elbridge dragged the cloth off the right shoulder and draped it over the left.
“He’s sure gonna be one pretty nigger!” Gray declared.
Hatcher placed the awl tip against the earlobe right where he wanted to make the hole. “Shit! Ain’t no pair of goddamned brass ear wires gonna make this mud-ugly son of a bitch into a pretty nigger!”
He rolled his eyes up at Jack. “Who you calling mud-ugly?”
Hatcher punched the awl through the lobe into the soft pinewood stop, yanked the awl out, and when he had handed it off, took the second piece of wire and slipped it through to loop it off. Then he stepped back, cocking his head from this side to that, back and forth, first inspecting one ear, then the other.
“A right fine job, even if I do say so my own self. Get Scratch that mirror again.”
He gently touched the brass wires that dangled from both ears while Rufus brought up the mirror. Turning it toward the light while he twisted about the log, Bass gazed at one ear in astonishment, then turned aside to inspect the other ear, his grin beginning to grow within that gray-striped beard.
“Well, Mad Jack Hatcher,” he declared, showing nearly all his teeth in glee, “you said you couldn’t—but you sure did make this mud-ugly nigger one purty feller.”
Through the heads and shoulders of the other trappers Bass again spotted Rowland squatting at the far side of the fire, scuffing up small clouds of dirt with a peeled stick he used to dig at the ground near his feet.
“Say, Johnny,” Scratch said, “don’t you think I look real purty now?”
“I s’pose,” Rowland mumbled so quietly, his words almost went unheard against the sough of the wind in the trees and the crackle of their fire.
The others moved aside as Titus clambered to his feet and stepped through them. He stopped at Rowland’s elbow. “Something eating a hole in your belly, ain’t it, John?”
Without looking up, the man answered, “Nothing wrong.”
“He’s been like this last few days,” Caleb explained, coming up at Scratch’s shoulder.
“Man can act any way he wants to,” Rowland snapped.
“We been friends long enough for me to know that something’s kicking around inside you and it won’t give ye no rest,” Hatcher said when he came to a stop on the other side of Titus.
Suddenly Rowland looked at the three of them. Then he blurted out his confession: “I wanna go back to Taos.”
“Go back?” Rufus repeated as he knelt nearby.
“I done decided it,” John declared. “Don’t wanna be up here right now.”
Jack inquired, “What’s pulling ye to give up on these here mountains?”
“You got me wrong,” Rowland protested. “I ain’t saying I’ve give up on the mountains from here on out, Jack.”
Jack settled on a log next to Rowland. “You and me, we fought more’n our share of red-bellies, Johnny. I figger ye can tell me what’s on yer mind.”
“I-I really dunno what this is all about,” Rowland admitted. “I ain’t never … never had me a feeling like this, Jack.”
“You had a hole cut outta your heart,” Bass explained quietly, sympathy flooding up inside him. “When you lost your Maria—it cut out a big hole from your heart.”
When Titus said it, Rowland looked up. Wagging his head, he said, “Ain’t none of this the same no more, Scratch. Not like it was before: when I didn’t have me no woman. Not like it was when I had Maria waiting for me back in Taos.”
“You turn back for the south, what you aim to do?” Solomon asked.