Dance on the Wind tb-1

by Terry C. Johnston

  Bass stuffed a second length of spring steel into the fire to heat. “So you kept on heading along the Grand?”

  “That’s the way of it. Puttin’ out hunters an’ keepin’ a eye on the skyline fer more red niggers wanna jump our leetle bunch. Now, that Glass feller what was along, he’d spent him some time with the Pawnee—so was no green-horn like some of them boys. I could see that, first off.”

  “This the same Glass you told me of?”

  “One an’ the same—Hugh Glass. Me an’ him struck it up—like I said: he had him some bark on him, that one. Not the sort to cow down an’ do all what Henry ordered him to.” Washburn spit a long brown stream into a small mound of hay mucked off to the side, wagging his head.

  “Shame of it is, Titus—that Glass bein’ such a ornery one likely got him in the biggest fix of his hull life, way I lays my sights to it. He had him a’purpose to be off huntin’ that day—wasn’t his duty that mornin’. But thar’ he went, off to work the kentry way out ahead of us. Son of a bitch was nothin’ if he weren’t ornery, that he was, for sure an’ for certain.”

  “What trouble he get hisself into?”

  “I be comin’ to that now, Titus. You yest tend to makin’ your beaver traps, an’ I’ll tend to makin’ my story.” He cleared his throat dramatically before continuing. “We wasn’t far up the Grand—maybe no more’n a week or so. That mornin’ that ol’ hunter’s off by his lonesome when he gets hisself chewed up something fierce by a grizz. Shit, Titus—Glass was just healin’ up from the arrer wound he took in the Ree fight. He’d come down to take a drink of water at the riverbank, an’ looks up to find hisself right smack a’tween a sow grizz an’ her two cubs. Nothin’ makes a mama grizz madder’n that, I’ll tell you.”

  “She kill him, kill ol’ Glass, I mean?”

  “She liked to—believe me! Clawin’ him up, ripping chunks o’ meat outta his shoulder an’ his backside afore some of the other hunters heard the shouts an’ come runnin’. We all put a shitload of lead in that grizz afore she fell dead: right on top of ol’ Glass. Man, when we gone an’ rolled that b’ar off’n him, wasn’t a one of us didn’t figger the ol’ man for nothin’ but dead. Henry put his head down on Glass’s chest—listened real keerful—then tol’t us he was still alive! Can you beat that for stink? Glass was still alive arter that turrible maulin’!”

  “I can’t figure he lasted for long, did he?”

  “No man don’t last long arter wrasslin’ with a grizz, Titus,” Isaac explained. “But then—I was to find out that Hugh Glass wasn’t yer usual feller either. The major ordered us all to make camp right there by the river, an’ we all had bear steaks that night for supper. Next morning Henry was fixin’ to bury Glass—they had his grave all ready for the man, cut down in the sand right aside Hugh. But that ornery cuss was still breathin’!”

  “Now you’re pulling my leg, you son of a bitch!” Bass roared. “He damned well couldn’t still be alive!”

  Washburn held a right hand up as if taking a solemn oath. “May I be struck dead with a bolt of the Lord’s terrible thunder if I’m stretchin’ the truth.”

  Bass cocked his head to the side, his eyes rolling heavenward, wary—expecting a sudden flash of lightning to come streaking through the roof over their heads.

  “With the ol’ man still breathin’—that give the hull bunch of us fits. Thar’ we was in kentry the Rees loved to roam, an’ we all knew them red niggers was still worked up and feeling like big cocks arter drivin’ Americans back down the river. ’Sides, we needed to push on quick before the first snow flied. An’ that was bound to be slow going if’n we hauled a dyin’ man along with us.”

  “You didn’t just leave him, did you?”

  “Didn’t figger on it at fust.” Then with a wag of his head, Isaac replied, “We all waited ’nother day—when Henry growed tired of lollygagging. So he asked fer volunteers to stay with ol’ Glass till the dyin’ man breathed his last, then bury him and hurry on to catch up with the rest of us so Henry could get on fer the beaver kentry. Offered good money to them that stayed.”

  “Did you?”

  “Naw. Wasn’t one to wanna leave my ha’r in that kentry. Two did say they would stay behin’t: fella named Fitzgerald, an’ that young’un Jim Bridger. Next morning the rest of us pulled out, walkin’ away from that camp—them two, an’ Ol’ Hugh Glass.”

  “He was still breathin’?”

  “Damn if he weren’t!” Then Washburn shuddered. “The way them flies smelled blood, Titus—it were a awful sight to behol’t: seein’ how the flies blackened ever’ one of the ol’ man’s wounds like a swarm of crawlin’ peppercorns.”

  Titus shuddered too. “What become of him, he up an’ die on them two?”

  Scratching his chin whiskers, Washburn continued. “Henry led us on to the beaver kentry, an’ we made ready for the winter. Fitzgerald and that Bridger lad come in with the ol’ man’s plunder an’ fixin’s. Said they’d buried him proper whar’ he was. But as that snake-eyed Fitz tol’t the tale of it, I watched the boy. Bridger never looked much at any of us. Couldn’t hol’t a man’s eye. Somethin’ ’bout it yest never sat right in my craw. I s’pose I guessed the wrong of it right then an’ thar’. Man cain’t look you in the eye, Titus—he’s got him something to hide from you. That’s the sort you cain’t count on watching yer backside neither. Still, something in my gut tol’t me that flim-flam Fitz was the big gator in that shit-hole. I had me a feelin’ he cowed the boy someway, slick-talked Bridger into doin’ the wrong they done. Right then I had me no idea what they done—but I was damned certain some such smelled bad. We yest all of us went on with the fall hunt. Bridger didn’t talk all that much into the fall neither. Keepin’ off to hisself. Then winter finally come down on us, hard—like the slap of a man’s hand right across’t your cheek—”

  It surprised Bass when Washburn slapped himself on the face, the sharp crack like the snap of a hickory wiping stick in that warm livery.

  “One cold night not long arter the snow got serious—thar comes a poundin’ at the gate,” Isaac continued. “An’ who you s’pose comes walkin’ into our post, draggin’ a bunged leg, lamed-up-like, got him a ol’t buffler robe snagged round his shoulder, snow froze to his ha’r an’ beard—Lordee! Lookin’ ever’ bit like a ghost, he was!”

  “G-glass?” Bass swallowed, letting the hammer slide from his fingers onto the anvil with a resounding clunk.

  “The ol’ man hisself!”

  Titus gulped. “H-he come back from the dead?”

  “Nawww!” Washburn growled. “I yest said it was the ol’ man hisself! Not no ghost!”

  Shaking his head in confusion, Bass started to mumble, but Isaac leaped right in to explain.

  “He never died. Them two yest left him fer dead.”

  “An’ he come lookin’ for ’em, didn’t he?” Titus roared, snapping his fingers with certainty.

  “He surely did—come for them that run off with his gun, his knife, an’ possibles. Leavin’ him lie beside his own shaller grave. Bad part of it, only one of them two was still thar’, Major Henry tol’t Glass. Over to the corner huddled up young Bridger—his face gone white as the sheet on a good folks’ bed. Knowin’ what he done in leavin’ the man fer dead—’thout nary a one of his possibles.”

  “Isaac—you figger he had the right to kill them two what left him in a fix like that?”

  “Aye, I do, Titus. The rest of us figgered it that way too. That were mountain justice. Well, now—the place fell quiet as Ol’ Glass’s grave was to be, while’st outside the blizzard was howlin’. Glass pulled out his pistol, walked over to young Bridger in the corner, an’ put the gun to the boy’s head. He stayed it there for a long time, starin’ down at Bridger’s face while the boy owned up to what he done afore all of us. Bridger didn’t blink—’stead he yest kept his own eyes right there lookin’ at that ol’ grizz-bait, now that he was shet of what he’d done wrong. Henry an’ me tol’t Glass it were Fitz carried m
ost of the blame, that he talked Bridger into it. But right is right, an’ Glass had him the right to blow out the boy’s candle then an’ there—if he was of a mind to.”

  “Just put that ball through the young’un’s brain?”

  Washburn spit, swiped the back of his hands across his stained chin whiskers, and waited a dramatic moment as he slowly formed his hand into the shape of a pistol. Gradually he lowered his thumb. “Arter a while, Glass eased down that hammer.”

  “He didn’t shoot Bridger?” Bass asked anxiously.

  “Nope. He yest turned to the rest of us an’ said, ‘The boy was yest a pup. Didn’t know no better. Fitzgerald’s the scalp I want.’ That’s when Bridger started shakin’, tremblin’ yest like a wet pup, tears come to his eyes, him swearin’ he’d never let a man down ever again.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Titus exclaimed almost under his breath, then poked more of the steel into the coals to heat.

  “Glass tol’t us all how he was givin’ life fer life. Yest the way the Almighty Above give him his life back or somethin’ such. He wasn’t gonna take Bridger’s life—but he was gonna run down Fitz. Claimed the Almighty Above told him vengeance would be his.”

  “How’d he come to get from the Grand River all the way to where you was winterin’ with Henry?”

  “He crawled.”

  “C-crawled?”

  “Man gets chewed up bad as he was by a grizz … he’s bound to have ter crawl. Tol’t us all the story of it that winter night arter he’d stuffed his meatbag full of venison. Said he started out on his belly, Glass did. Some weeks later got up on his hands an’ one leg, dragging the other leg what the sow chewed up so bad. Maggots wrigglin’ down in his wounds—crawlin’ in an’ out, eatin’ all the p’isen out—flies buzzin’ round him something awful as he crawled on down our backtrail, foot by foot.”

  “Hang on there—you said he took your backtrail? Here I thought you said he come up to Henry’s fort that winter.”

  “He did get up to that post, but—savvy as he was—first off Glass pointed his nose for Fort Kioway. Knowed it were closer. Still some three hunnert miles or so,” Washburn answered, undisguised wonder a’shine in his eyes. “When ol’ Hugh made it to Kioway, said he talked hisself into a new outfit an’ fetched him a ride on a traders’ boat going north.”

  “Past them troublemaking Rees?”

  “Ain’t you the smart one now, Titus?” Isaac exclaimed. “That’s right: already Glass knowed better’n to try to poke his way on by such river niggers—so yest downriver from them villages, Glass had them traders put over and he went ashore, making overland. Kept to the brush and the timber, and what you know? It weren’t long afore he heard the fight boomin’ behin’t him as them Rees jumped those traders. He found a hidey-hole and laid low. An’ when the dust settled down, Glass turned back—found all those fellers on the boat was wiped out.”

  Titus dragged the steel from the fire, laying the glowing red strap over the horn on his anvil, fixing to begin hammering a bend into the spring steel. “Glass found hisself alone again?”

  “Damn sure was. But that ornery hivernant run right onto some Mandans what knew better’n to jump ary a white man this time. L’arn’t their lesson from us’ns with Henry. Them Mandans took Glass’s ol’ bones on upriver to their villages. An’ from thar’ he pushed on alone, walkin’ up the Missouri to reach our winter digs on foot. Hate’s a meal what can sure keep a man warm, no matter how cold the storm is, Titus.”

  Bass shuddered involuntarily as something slipped down the length of his spine—little matter how he sweated with his exertions there beside the glowing forge. He asked, “Now that he forgive Bridger, Glass was still dead set on finding this Fitzgerald?”

  “Come mornin’, he told us—he was leavin’ off again. Wild-eyed, the ol’ man was. Said he’d nursed himself back to bein’ strong, hearin’ the voice of the Almighty inside his head ever’ foot of the way—that voice sayin’ vengeance would be his. Fitz would be delivered up to his hand. Glass knowed he had God’s word on it an’ it was meant to be.”

  “So he up an’ took off the very next morning?”

  “Soon as that storm broke, that ol’ man disappeared. But he didn’t go alone: three others told Henry they figured to go with him on that hunt for Fitz. Bound and determined to find the man truly at fault for Glass being left to die in the wilderness ’thout no possibles nor truck.”

  After a long silence from the old trapper, Bass looked up from his work with the hammer. Washburn was staring at him.

  “Titus, I was one of them three.”

  “You went with Glass to hunt the man down?”

  With a nod Isaac continued. “We marched west on foot—nary a one of us had a animal to ride, only one ribby horse Henry let us have for packing our blankets and plunder. We tramped up the Yallerstone to the mouth of the Powder, then turned south up the Powder. Far ’nough up toward the headwaters of the Powder we struck out south, making for the Platte. Leastways, that’s what river Glass figgered it had to be when we finally run onto it. Wasn’t long afore the ol’ man said if we kept on trampin’ east, the closer we’d come to Pawnee country.”

  “Same Injuns Glass’d spent him some time with, right?”

  “An’ run off from—so he sure didn’t wanna run into those folks again,” Washburn answered. “But look an’ behol’t! We run smack-dab into a big war party of Arikara instead! Likely they was wanderin’ south, out looking for to steal some horses from the ’Rapaho or Siouxs, any band them river niggers hoped to find down there in that kentry. Wasn’t s’posed to run onto them the way we was going, Glass said. But there them red niggers was.”

  Bass leaned close, enthralled and captivated with every new twist in the story. “What became of you and them Rees you bumped into?”

  “A fight of it—that’s what. They kill’t two of us, right off. Shot me up a li’l”—Isaac pointed to his left arm—“an’ kill’t our only horse. Me an’ Glass, we jumped down into a small stream slick with ice, wading on down hugging the bank and hangin’ back in them bare willers real close—yest like they was a woman’s soft breast. Weren’t long before we found us a hole in that bank to hide in, yest big enough for our ol’ bones to scrunch up in—it bein’ close to low-water time and the beaver bein’ moved on, leaving that hole behin’t for us the way they done. Down in that stream them Rees damn well couldn’t find ’em no tracks of the two white men got away. We pulled in some wilier behin’t us, to cover up the mouth of that hidey-hole, an’ laid thar’, holdin’ our wind. Up an’ down the crik above us Injuns hooted an’ hollered fer the better part of that arternoon afore we heard ’em pull off an’ leave. ’Long torst the sun goin’ down we heard ’em screeching in glee off upriver. Likely they was workin’ over them two other fellers started out with us from Henry’s post.”

  “Who was they?”

  “Never knowed their Christian names—damn me,” Washburn admitted, wagging his head dolefully. “Likely them boys had ’em families, Glass said that night when it was gettin’ dark. That was the very fust thing he said ever’ since’t we crawled into that hole too. An’ it were the last thing he ever said about them two, from thar’ on out. Arter slap-dark we finally dared stick our heads out an’ started walking.”

  “Where the hell you head to then?” Titus asked, driving the hammer down hard, sending fireflies of sparks from the heated metal as it bent around the anvil’s horn.

  “Ol’ Hugh claimed he felt right pert. Claimed this time he had him his gun and his fixin’s. Not like the last time he’d been left to push through Injun kentry after Fitz run off with ever’thing Glass owned. It gave me the willers ’cause he kept saying, over an’ over: ‘’Sides, us keepin’ our ha’r in that fix is yest ’nother sign God’s watching over me—making sure I track down Fitz, the one what left me fer dead.’”

  “Bet you fellas covered some ground that night,” Bass said eagerly. “Sleep all day?”

  Isaac nodded. “Found us
some cover come sunup. Laid low till the night come round again. Went on like that, night arter night—making ourselves a hidey-hole ever’ day. That ol’ man was some walker, he was. Had him a big chest he could fill up with that cold winter air, strong legs he kept a’movin. He was one coon downright made for walking. Me? I was a man made for riding. I come to figger that out follerin’ Hugh Glass cross’t that Platte River kentry. Never been more certain of anythin’ in my life: Isaac Washburn ain’t cut out fer walkin’.”

  “So where’d you two light out for?”

  “Eventual we left the Platte, struck out overland, making for Fort Kioway again. I turned to Ol’ Glass. ‘How far you make it from here?’ asks I. ‘More’n two hunnert miles,’ says he. ‘Closer to three hunnert likely.’ I scratched my head, looked off into that night sky, darker’n the belly of your own grave, I s’pose. So I up an’ asks him, ‘Ain’t Atkinson closer? Maybe by half?’ He yest looked at me, no smile, no nothin’. ‘Shore is,’ Glass said. ‘We’ll go thar’ … if’n you got balls big enough to walk with me through Pawnee kentry. Them niggers be wintered up all ’long the Platte this time of year. Best you recollect I runned off from the Pawnee fer a damn good reason, Isaac.’”

  When Washburn paused in moving his story along, Bass grew impatient and inquired, “Which way you decide to go?”

  “I tol’t Hugh we’d head for Kioway.”

  “To stay away from them Pawnee he hated,” Titus observed.

  “We struck the headwaters of the Niobrara. Crossed over the divide thar’ an’ come on the headwaters of the White. Movin’ north by east ever’ night—watchin’ for sign in the sky, them stars. Laying out o’ sight ever’ day. Comin’ right through the heart of them badlands the Pawnee steer clear of. Glass said he knowed the White River take us right on to the Missouri. When we get there, we’d turn north a short piece and find ourselves at Kioway.”