Death Rattle tb-8

by Terry C. Johnston

  She shook her head.

  He looked from Waits to Magpie. From her to Flea. And back to Waits-by-the-Water again before answering.

  “They call it going to the blanket.”

  With a grin, she said, “It is a good way to express it, this going to the blanket.”

  “I do not understand,” Flea admitted.

  He scratched his chin whiskers a moment, then explained, “I suppose they call it that because one of the most important contacts there has ever been between the white men and the Indians is to trade in blankets. That goes back a long, long time, son. Long before any man now alive.”

  Flea asked, “So what does this mean, go to the blanket?”

  “For a white man to go to the blanket—it means he’s given up on being a white man anymore, given up on living among white folks and their ways ever again. He’s going to live in the blanket, with the Indians and their way of life.”

  Magpie asked, “My father is going to be a Crow?”

  “I can never be a Crow,” he admitted with a wag of his head. “Not like you and your two brothers are Crow, Magpie. But I will live among Yellow Belly’s people as a Crow. I come to the blanket because my wife is Crow. Because my children will always be Crow too. And … because there is nothing left for me as a white man.”

  “This is your home,” Waits said as she laid the sleeping infant on the robes beside her and scooted closer to her husband. “This is where we should all stay now that the time of white fur trappers is fading in the past. Now that the mountains are no longer filled with white men, coming and going.”

  “We’ll be just fine, living the Crow way,” Scratch told them as he looped his arm around her shoulder. “Going to the blanket, the white folks call it. I won’t argue with those white folks who look down on menfolk like me who go to the blanket. Truth be, I’m damn well proud to tell the whole world Titus Bass had gone to the blanket!”

  “When can we name your new son in the old way of the Crow?” inquired his wife.

  Flea seized on that and asked, “What will you name this little one, Popo?”

  “Whoa, son. Hold on there. I haven’t had time to think on names for him yet. I only learned of him last night, and you want a name already?”

  “He needs a name,” Waits agreed. “It is a father’s duty to name his children.”

  “Yes, these two have good names.” And he squeezed both of the children against him.

  Waits smiled. “So you’ll listen to what the Grandfather Above tells you his name is? Now that this child’s father has returned home—you must listen intently because the Creator will speak this boy’s name to you.”

  “Yes,” Scratch sighed, gazing at the back of the baby’s head as it slept. “I must find the right name for this child who came as a secret I did not know.”

  “Can we help listen for what to name him, Popo?” Magpie asked.

  “No,” Titus said gently. “It is my job to hear what the Grandfather Above tells me. I found the right names for you and your brother. So I trust that I will find the right name for this little one.”

  “When you do,” Waits began, “what of a naming ceremony?”

  The idea struck him as a good one. “Invite others to come celebrate with us?”

  “Yes—we are here among my people, among this child’s people,” she declared. “We should name him in the traditional way.”

  “Yes! I agree. With Magpie and Flea—we only had our family. Now we can gather others around us when we announce the little one’s name.”

  She reached over to gently tug on his graying whiskers. “Your wife thinks you should get busy this morning to find out what that name will be.”

  “Soon enough I will listen.”

  “Not this morning?” she repeated.

  “I have something else to do first,” he began with a wide smile, followed by a wink down at his oldest son. “Last night I promised Flea he would have a chance to hear the Cheyenne horses talk to him this morning.”

  “Will my mother be angry with me?” Flea asked as they neared the end of the meadow where they had picketed the fifteen Cheyenne horses last night.

  “Because I came to listen to the horses with you instead of listening for a name to give your little brother?” he asked, patting the boy on the back of the head as they scuffed through the deep snow. “No, son—your mother will be angry at me!”

  “She will be angry because you are giving me a horse?”

  “Yes,” Titus answered. “She doesn’t think you are old enough to have a horse of your own.”

  “Maybe she is right.” And the child wagged his head.

  “Are you saying that because you think she is right? Or, are you saying it so you won’t make your mother angry at you?”

  He glanced up at his father. “Maybe … because … sometimes she might be right.”

  “Every boy your age has misgivings at times,” he consoled. “You must expect to have doubts too. Any man who is too sure of everything is a man I am afraid of. Do you understand?”

  “I think I do, Father. It is all right to be afraid of some things.”

  “Yes,” Titus answered. “Are you ever afraid of horses?”

  “Not much anymore.”

  “Then I figure it’s up to you to decide what you’ll do,” he said as they came to a halt near the steadiest animal of them all, that old roan saddle horse. “You can deny all that your spirit tells you about yourself just to keep your mother from being angry with you … or you can tell your mother that you have this spirit helper inside you that you are going to follow.”

  “I don’t know what she would say to me if I told her that.”

  “Neither do I, son. But you can’t be afraid of displeasing your mother. In the years to come, there will be many times in your life when you have to tear yourself from your mother. More and more as you grow up. You’ll even pull yourself away from your father too—so you can be your own person one day, following the call of your own spirit. But that won’t happen without some pain for all of us.”

  “Father, can I tell you when I am afraid?”

  Bass squeezed his son against him and kissed the top of his head. “Yes. As long as you let me tell you when I am afraid too. Those are the sorts of spirit things a father and a son share between them.”

  “Will you talk to my little brother this way when he is older like me?”

  “When he is ready, he will let me know that it is time for us to talk like this,” Titus assured, feeling his heart swell with such pride. “Shush, now—and listen. Let’s stand here and see if any of these horses talks to you this morning.”

  They waited and listened for a long time. Then Bass nudged Flea forward. Together they walked among the animals, slowly, and as quietly as they could upon the icy, trampled snow that squeaked with every step. Of a sudden the boy stopped and turned around to stare back at a claybank gelding.

  The horse stood with its rump toward them but had cocked its head around, as if staring at the youngster that just passed him by. Bass held his breath and listened, straining to hear any sound the animal might make, watching carefully to spot any suspect movement by the horse’s jaw. But he heard and saw nothing.

  “No,” Flea suddenly spoke. “But next summer will be my seventh.”

  It made the hair stand on Bass’s arms. His son took two steps away from his father, then stopped, all the closer to the claybank.

  “I came looking for a war pony,” Flea continued. Then paused as he took another step closer to the gelding that from all appearances continued to study the boy closely.

  “I know I am not ready to go to war yet, but my father told me even a pony boy should have a horse of his own.”

  Somewhat skeptical, a part of Bass wanted to convince himself that Flea was having fun at his expense.

  “The bay has the strongest wind?” Flea seemed to repeat. “And the small red is the fastest among you?”

  Bass wanted to chuckle. This was a good joke Flea was h
aving on his father—carrying on a conversation with the horse. Now, Titus would readily admit that he did believe different folks possessed different powers, even that his son might possess some special medicine that would allow him to understand the secret language of horses … but to carry on a conversation back and forth with this claybank as if Flea was talking to a person?

  “Why should I choose you?”

  Maybe this joking had gone far enough. Scratch began to reach out to lay his hand on Flea’s shoulder when the boy took another step toward the claybank.

  “Yes, of course I realize I can hear you, that I can talk to you. But why does that—”

  With one more step toward the gelding, Flea stopped all but underneath the claybank’s neck, staring up at the pony’s eyes. The youngster nodded in the most matter-of-fact manner, then said, “I understand. Since you and I can talk to one another, that does prove you are the horse for me, doesn’t it?”

  Titus hurried up and put his two hands on his son’s shoulders protectively, ready to put a stop to what he clearly did not understand, a situation that was giving him a very eerie sensation.

  Flea turned confidently and peered up at his father. “This is the one, Popo. He told me something that makes sense.”

  “W-what, son?”

  “This horse admitted he isn’t the strongest horse, or the fastest horse either.”

  “Then, why have you decided to choose him?”

  For the first time, Flea reached up and patted the claybank along the strong jaw. “I choose him because he tells me he is most like you, Father. Not the strongest, nor the fastest. But because he is the smartest.”

  Over the next few days, Bass spent part of every afternoon outside, basking in the late sun and carving a number of special invitation sticks that had to be ready when the time came for the naming ceremony. Using his smallest skinning knife, Titus carved his own unique patterns on the cottonwood pegs, then meticulously peeled away pieces of the bark to expose the pale inner bark. With a bundle of those sticks carved, he started Magpie coloring the pale patterns for him, using some vermillion powder he dissolved in warm water. He showed her how to dip a fingertip into the horn bowl and rub the part in her hair for decoration—to use the same technique in rubbing the red dye into wood.

  On those days when the unpredictable weather permitted, he took Flea hunting with him. Again there were moments Scratch scolded himself for not learning to shoot McAfferty’s bow simply because all they ran across were snow-white hares. But eventually, they would happen onto some deer tracks, or even spot a few antelope grazing out on the flats where the wind had blown the old snow clear. The first time he showed Flea just how curious a creature the antelope was, the boy ended up laughing so loud that the few animals bolted away before Scratch could get off a shot. They had to mount up and follow the fleeing animals until the antelope finally stopped again.

  Once more, Bass hid their horses in a coulee. “You can come with me, son. But if you laugh at how stupid those antelope are this time—instead of some fresh meat tied over the back of your new horse—I’ll take you back to camp tied down the same way!”

  “I promise,” Flea said, trying hard to wipe the smile from his mouth with his small blanket mitten.

  “When I start crawling, you get down on your belly with me,” Titus instructed. “There will be no talking from here on.”

  “All right, Popo.”

  “Here,” and Bass handed the boy his rifle’s long wiping stick, to the end of which he had tied a corner of a bright Mexican scarf, a bright yellow cloth covered with a profusion of blue and red flowers. “You know what to do when I tap your shoulder and point?”

  “Yes. I’ll poke the stick into the snow so the antelope will see the scarf waving in the breeze.”

  “Good, lad. Their curiosity will work against their suspicious natures and bring them to us so that we can pick one of them for our supper.”

  The boy’s face got serious. “No laughing at those stupid animals though.”

  He laid a mitten on his son’s shoulder. “Just make sure that one day in your life, you don’t become like the antelope and are fooled into being so curious you blunder into your own death.”

  They emerged over the side of the coulee where the ravine grew shallow, staying on their bellies as they crawled a few yards onto the prairie. Bass stopped and put out his hand to touch his son’s arm. Flea nodded as he reached forward the full length of his arm and jammed the ramrod into the crusty snow. Now they had only to wait while that Mexican scarf rippling in the wind worked its magic to lure the unwary antelope into range.

  As a doe moved closer, Titus dragged the hammer back to full cock as quietly as the lock would allow. She was clearly nervous, pacing anxiously side to side several yards at a time—never coming directly toward the hunters—but her eyes always watching that scarf nonetheless. As wary as she tried to be, her curiosity was soon to be her undoing. Then at sixty yards, it appeared she wasn’t going to come any closer.

  Titus glanced up at the scarf, measuring the strength of the breeze and its direction. Laying his cheek against the rifle, he snugged the weapon into the curve of his shoulder. Squeezing back on the rear set trigger, he moved his bare finger forward in the trigger guard to wait there like a summer’s whisper while he got the sight picture he wanted on her front flank. She turned, still nervous … so he repositioned the front blade.

  Then squeezed.

  That .54-caliber Derringer roared—old workhorse that it was. He knew this rifle, knew where it would shoot and where to hold, as steady as any man was with a firearm.

  Flea was up and running across the snow as Bass clambered to his knees, then brought his legs under him. He stood reloading there and then while the boy reached the antelope and danced around it.

  “Let me dress it! Let me do it this time!” Flea cried as his father approached.

  “You can help,” Titus offered, glad for his son’s enthusiasm as he came to a stop beside the antelope doe, “but you must learn what is most important, son.”

  “What?”

  Holding the blade, Titus handed his knife to his son. “Remember that your empty hand must always know what the hand with the knife is doing.”

  They knelt together, and Scratch grabbed a fore- and rear leg on one side, easing the doe onto her back. He stretched out her neck, then cupped his hand around his son’s hand as they lowered the knife to make that first incision from throat to groin.

  “Feel it in your hand, in your arm and shoulder too,” he instructed. “Don’t stab the point too deep, or you’ll make a mess of her insides and it will spoil the meat.”

  As they gently worked their way down the chest, Titus gradually took some of the pressure off his son’s hand, allowing Flea to do more and more of that first carving by himself.

  “You must always be careful not to cut off your hand, Flea,” he reminded with a grin, his son nestled there within his arms as they worked in tandem. “Unless you want to be a one-handed horseman when you grow up!”

  This antelope was a most welcome change to the deer they had harvested in the shady bottoms or that elk cow they had spotted in the hillside timber. A different taste altogether. It warmed his heart to see how eagerly Magpie and Flea ate and ate, until they were stuffed at every meal—knowing how little the children might have had to eat while he was away chasing not the mountain beaver but California horses. And each time he gazed at their greasy, smiling faces, watching them gnaw every morsel from the bones, he silently renewed his vow never again to leave his family behind.

  It happened that a name was spoken to him.

  At sunrise the next morning Titus bundled the children against the bright, sunny cold, pulling fur hats down over their ears to protect them from the frigid winds and the sprinkling hoarfrosts. As Waits nursed the infant, Magpie and Flea stood before their father.

  “I want my son to carry these sticks in his mittens,” Scratch instructed, then handed the carved and painted co
ttonwood pegs to Flea. “And at each lodge, you will give one to your sister so that she can make the invitation.”

  “I ask them to come?” Magpie inquired.

  Waits answered now, “To our lodge. At sundown this day. For supper and a naming.”

  “Do you understand, children?” Titus asked them.

  Both nodded their heads. Then Magpie answered for both of them. “We are ready to do this for our little brother.”

  Scratch sank to one knee and gathered them both in his arms tightly. He released them and arose, saying, “Go then. And when you are done, hurry back. We have much, so much to do.”

  After the two had shoved the door cover back in place over the opening, Waits-by-the-Water sighed, “You have decided upon a name?”

  He chuckled, then said, “Dear mother of my children—we couldn’t have a naming ceremony for the boy if the Grandfather hadn’t already told me his name!”

  At the appointed time late that afternoon the first guests arrived to scratch at the door pole.

  “Is my white brother receiving dinner guests?” Turns Plenty asked.

  Titus shoved the door flap aside, saying, “Come in, come in. I’m sorry you had to ask. Please, take a seat of honor as our first guest.”

  As Turns Plenty eased around the left side of the fire in the path the sun takes across the sky, Scratch set his hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “Quickly now, put on your coats, children. I want you both to wait outside to welcome our guests. Magpie, you greet them, and Flea—you pull the door flap open for them to enter.”

  The eager children quickly dressed for the cold and dived outside into the last of the sun’s light.

  Singly or in pairs, the respected men of the tribe, as well as those who had long ago befriended Titus Bass, all appeared at their door. When the last had arrived, Scratch called his children inside to join those who encircled the cheery fire, so many they formed two rings. Warm as it was in the lodge, the men quickly shed their coats before they were offered what tin plates Waits-by-the-Water owned, along with lap-size sheets of scraped buffalo parfleche. On these the guests were invited to take their choice from chunks of the boiled or roasted elk speared from the steamy kettles and pulled from those roasting sticks positioned around the fire pit.