Dance on the Wind

by Johnston, Terry C.

  Taking a big bite out of the carrot-sized twist, Zane stuffed the rest into a pocket of his britches and growled, “Punch through the bunghole of that keg of rye and tap it, Reuben. An’ be quick about it! I’m beginning to feel real puny, and this leg is starting to talk to me.”

  After lighting the wick on the second candle lantern, Bass turned to the pilot, holding the burning tow and asking, “W-what more you w-want me to do, Ebenezer?”

  “Your knife a sharp’un?”

  He nodded, his Adam’s apple jumping like a great green grasshopper up the front of his neck. “Sharp ’nough to skin anything.”

  “Good,” Zane snarled around the lump of tobacco puffing up the side of his cheek like a case of the mumps. “You get it out and slick it on that strop hanging yonder. I figure you’ll be the one what can do the cutting on me.”

  “M-me?” His heart seemed to stop. Titus felt himself begin to quake, starting up right from the soles of his feet.

  “Yeah, you, goddammit.” He spit to the side, the brown tobacco gob landing in the sand of the firebox, where it raised a small cloud of old ash. “Now get a fire started down there an’ heat us some water.”

  “You want me to c-cut on you?”

  “Damn right I do!” Zane said, then raised his eyes to the frightened youngster’s, his voice becoming softer. “Listen, boy—I figure you got the steadiest hand here in this here bunch of scurvy entrails.”

  “I don’t think I could cut on ’nother man.”

  “You damn well just killed a man!”

  For a moment he stared at the pilot, perhaps not wanting to believe. Then he answered quietly, “I … I killed a man?”

  Kingsbury said, “Damn sure did!”

  Feeling the certainty of that course through him, Titus replied, “I done what I had to do—save you, Ebenezer.”

  “That’s why you’re gonna cut on me now.”

  Bass wagged his head. “I … don’t think I—”

  “You hunt, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, you know I do—”

  “An’ ever since you was a sprout, you butchered out what you hunt?”

  Titus only got to nod before Zane went on, pain written over his paste-colored face as he gritted on some of the words.

  “Then you’re the one I want cutting on me. Likely you done more work on hide and meat than all the rest of these here bastards,” the pilot said, his eyes closing halfway, beads of perspiration standing out like diamonds on his forehead. “Besides, Titus Bass—there’s ’nother goddamned good reason you’re the one better do the cutting on me.”

  He tried to swallow, gulping at the hot lump clogging the back of his throat before he answered, afraid his words would come out as a squeak. “W-what’s that, Ebenezer?”

  “You’re gonna cut this arrow outta the back of my goddamned leg ’cause you’re the one I reckon got it put there in the first place.”

  11

  It was damned cold there in the dark—moonless the way it was. Their only light shook loose and rained down from those brilliant stars hoisted way up high in that tarry sky. Not near enough for him to tell much about where the crates and casks ended and the gunnel began.

  Black, and bloody well cold enough that a man wanted nothing more than to stay wrapped in that blanket Titus had draped about him as he sat atop some hundred-weight barrels of flour lashed near the front of the awning. The rest slept, soundly, from what he could hear of them.

  Titus let his heavy eyelids fall. What little sleep he had grabbed during the first two watches wasn’t near enough to let him fight off the mighty pull of slumber. What with the night quiet as cotton on the wind. Nothing more than the constant murmur of the river lapping against the yellow poplar sides of the flatboat, along with an occasional call of a owl on the hunt, maybeso the howl of a distant wolf on the prowl somewhere on that western side of the Mississippi.

  Those nightsounds, and that muffled scrape at the stern of the boat. Likely a snag, he considered, letting his eyes close securely.

  That was but one kind of terror that might “stove in” the bottom of a boat if a watchful crewman stationed at the bow did not push off that sort of hazard. A snag was nothing more than a branch, a piece of a tree trunk, “trashwood” freely floating downriver.

  More dangerous still were planters and sawyers—both of them trees freed from the river’s eroding banks. The planter had one of its ends firmly planted in the river bottom but otherwise plainly visible so that the flatboat crew could steer themselves away from the hazard. The sawyer was, like a planter, a fallen tree with its end firmly gripped by the river bottom, but the other end bobbing above and below the waterline—making it the greatest hazard of all.

  Either one—planter or sawyer—could put a quick end to a flatboat’s journey to New Orleans. Already Zane’s crew had passed the wrecks of half a dozen flatboats since leaving behind the mouth of the Ohio. A tree branch of no mean size could nonetheless still gouge a hole in the hull of a broadhorn with no more force behind it than the river’s current.

  And when either hazard did crunch into a flatboat, the rivermen immediately had to begin bailing and using their leather pump while attempting to reach shore before they sank—there to effect repairs, if possible, before their expensive cargo disappeared at the muddy bottom of the Mississippi.

  Come spring, the boatmen told Titus, the river was dang near choked full of planters and sawyers, sometimes so many that it might appear they were floating through a submerged grove of trees. Winter travel wasn’t near so bad. Still, they had seen some on this trip down, sure enough—more here on the Mississippi than on the less rambunctious Ohio.

  From the sounds of it, likely a small snag had just bumped against the upriver end of the boat, scraped, and floated on by.

  He opened his eyes and looked back at the stern. Nothing. No more sound now. And try as he might in the pitiful starshine, Titus couldn’t much make out anything on the surface of the river as the black water flowed on past.

  Gone on by, he convinced himself. Then looked longingly at what few red embers remained in that sandbox where they had heated water he’d used in cutting on Zane’s leg. About the time the brass kettle had begun to boil, Kingsbury and Ovatt had heaved the flatboat over to the far western bank and tied up in some brush. They hadn’t needed to go ashore to secure the hawsers—simply lashing them to the roots of some sycamore trees exposed in the side of the bank like bared rib bones in some half-consumed carrion.

  He turned and leaned against a crate, dragging the thick wool blanket back over his shoulder, smelling its musty river stench, then shifting the rifle across his lap Titus let his eyelids sink once more.

  By the time they had secured the boat to those roots, Titus had pulled the kettle from the fire and sat there quivering as he honed his knife across the strop’s greased surface. Having no idea where to begin cutting on a man’s leg, digging out the shaft of an arrow from that man’s flesh, Bass figured he’d just wait for someone to tell him what to do—even if it had to be Ebenezer Zane himself.

  The pilot drank long and hard at the rye they sloshed out of one of the gallon kegs the crew kept for their own use.

  “Messessap water tastes like weak mud,” Ebenezer had explained in a slur.

  “He’s right,” Kingsbury agreed as the rest gathered round, holding the lanterns close. “Ain’t no use in washing with it—a fella ends up just as dirty, smeared up too. Maybeso in coffee it’ll do.”

  That seemed reasonable enough an explanation why liquor was always the drink of choice for a Mississippi boatman. The river rendered such a disagreeable drink that most men took to letting a pail of it set overnight, hoping to settle most of the dirt. Even then, many of those working flats down the Mississippi drank it right out of the river for its “medicinal qualities,” others claiming the Mississippi was a cure-all and “powerful cathartic,” even “a purifier of a hardy man’s blood.”

  “Do like he told you,” Kingsbury said. “Cut tha
t hole in his britches bigger so you can see to work on him.”

  Without a word of reply Titus brought his trembling hands back to the base of the arrow shaft that Kingsbury attempted to hold steady. A squat and powerful man, Reuben Root had positioned himself between Zane’s legs, where he locked an arm around each ankle. Heman Ovatt squatted near the pilot’s head, helping Zane drink his liquor and staying ready to bear down on Ebenezer’s arms when the need arose. Across the steersman’s body Kingsbury laid his weight, there to assist the best he could as young Bass finished tearing the thick nankeen cloth nearly the whole length of the wounded man’s thigh from buttock to knee.

  “You don’t need the whole goddamned arrow no more,” Zane slurred, the rye clearly beginning to work. “Figure you might just as well break off a big chunk of it and lemme have it.”

  Titus asked, “What you want it for?”

  Ebenezer twisted his head slightly, still not able to touch Bass with his eyes. “Gonna bite down on it, you stupid young’un. When you finally get around to cutting that son of a bitch outta my leg. Now, do as I said and break it off!”

  Bass’s hands were shaking so when he took hold of the shaft that Zane yelped in pain, his leg twisting up, his body contorting in pain. Titus let go as if he had touched a hot fire poker.

  “Here, lemme,” Kingsbury suggested softly. “See if I can do it.”

  Steadying one hand against the back of Zane’s thigh and around the shaft, the boatman wrapped the other hand just above it, looked up at Titus, and closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as he gave the shaft a snap. It broke smartly, making the sharpest sound in that quiet night tied against the west bank of the Mississippi.

  Zane huffed, slowly quieting his breathing. “Gimme that, Hames, goddammit.”

  Titus watched the pilot take the arrow shaft and jam it between his big teeth. Then he laid his cheek upon the blanket they had folded beneath him once more. He grumbled something Bass could not understand.

  “W-what’d you say—”

  “Get it done!” he ordered, having yanked the shaft from his mouth so his words weren’t so garbled.

  Looking up at Kingsbury, Titus asked, “You figure we should see just how hard it’s buried in there?”

  Kingsbury only nodded.

  Taking hold of the last six inches of shaft, Bass pulled slightly. Zane groaned, but made no great cry of pain. Titus gave another, harder yank—and this time Zane nearly came off the deck of the boat with a stifled shriek. When Bass let go, Ebenezer lay there panting as the pain passed over him in waves.

  “Gonna have to cut it out,” Root advised. “Just like he tol’t you at the start.”

  “Y-you knowed I was gonna have to cut it out, didn’t you, Ebenezer?” Bass said.

  Zane raised his head wearily and nodded once, his eyes glazing.

  “Then I reckon you been stuck by an arrow afore,” Titus replied.

  “Neber,” he said quietly around the shaft.

  “Seems that makes two of us, Ebenezer.”

  Zane asked, “How’s dat?”

  “I ain’t never cut a arrow outta a man afore neither.”

  Suddenly a little scared when he saw Zane turn slowly to peer back over his shoulder at him, Titus tried to look away but could not tear his eyes off the pilot’s clay-white face as Ebenezer took the shaft from his mouth.

  “That’s good, Titus Bass,” Zane said, his glassy eyes smiling more than his lips. “A man what can make me laugh just when he’s fixing to go cutting on my leg—that’s all right, Titus Bass. Like I said afore: you’ll do to ride the river with.”

  He watched Zane return the shaft between his teeth, then turned back to Kingsbury. “I figure this cutting is gonna hurt him something fierce.”

  “We’ll hold him,” Ovatt said, locking Zane’s arms under his.

  “Just get on with it,” Root said from the pilot’s legs.

  “You cut slow enough, maybe he won’t feel it so bad,” Kingsbury suggested almost in a whisper. “Not near as soon anyways.”

  It took all his strength to put the tip of his knife against that flesh, piercing the ragged hole cupped around the shaft, oozing blood shiny in the light spilled by the candles hung from the beam just above their heads. As he began to drag the blade through the soft, giving skin and down into the muscle, stroke by stroke by stroke below the shaft, Zane whimpered, groaned, growled around his piece of wood, but he lay amazingly still. Only the punctured leg quivered uncontrollably in something resembling a muscle spasm each time Bass’s blade sank deeper.

  “Try it now,” Kingsbury said, then nodded to Ovatt and Root as if to tell them to lock down on Zane.

  With his left hand Titus put some strain on the shaft. The pilot squealed in pain. While he heard Ebenezer gasping, Bass pressed on with his work and pried open the incision he had made with the bloody blade, pulling up with a steady pressure at the same time.

  The shaft yanked free.

  With a loud grunt Zane went limp.

  “Ebenezer?” Ovatt called out. Then repeated it again more loudly. He touched the pilot’s face. “He’s gone, boys.”

  “G-gone?” Titus groaned. “I kill’t him?”

  “Jesus God, no!” Ovatt replied with a. chuckle. “Zane’s done passed out.”

  “Good thing, too,” Kingsbury said. “He took that longer’n nary any man I know of would taken it. G’won now, Titus.”

  “G-g’won?”

  “You’ve more to dig outta his leg.”

  “More?”

  Snatching the shaft from Titus’s hand, Kingsbury held it inches before the youth’s eyes. “Can’t you see, goddammit! Here’s the arrow! But there ain’t no point on the son of a bitch.” He wheeled on Root. “Get over there to larboard and pull one of them arrows out’n the side of the boat, Reuben. I wanna have us a lookee at it.”

  When Root returned, he handed two arrows over to Kingsbury. “Side of the boat looks like a porkypine, stuck the way it is.”

  “I s’pose Ebenezer’s lucky he only catched the one,” Kingsbury replied. “Look there, Titus,” and the boatman held both arrows to the lamplight. “These got ’em some iron points. Damn it all. See how they’re tied round the shaft with that wrap.”

  “I see.”

  “It all come loose inside his leg. The wrap and the point too. Got wet in his blood.”

  “An’ slipped off the shaft,” Ovatt finished for them.

  Root inquired, “Gotta dig it out, Hames?”

  “Gotta try.” Then he peered up at Bass. “Don’t we, Titus?”

  “I’ll … try.”

  He went back to work, pressing down on one side of the incision with his bloody fingers, slicing down a little at a time with the point of his blade until he saw something fibrous. He snagged it between his trembling fingers and pulled slowly. Out it came in a long, thick thread.

  “Just like I tol’t you,” Kingsbury declared. “Now, go back in there and get the head of it afore Ebenezer wakes up.”

  “I don’t think he’s coming to till morning, Hames,” Ovatt reported.

  “Good thing too,” Kingsbury responded. “Finish it, Titus.”

  Back down into the meat of the river pilot’s muscle he probed, until it felt as if the tip of the blade scraped against something harder than the soft, giving tissue. Hoping it wasn’t bone, he slowly pressed two fingers deep into the incision, both of them feeling down the knife’s blade until a fingertip struck it. Taking it between his fingers, he pulled. Slick with dark, warm blood—his fingers slipped off.

  Again he grabbed hold of it, pulled, and slipped off.

  “I c-can’t get a hold on it.”

  “Stuck in the bone, most like,” Ovatt grumbled.

  “Yeah,” Kingsbury agreed. “Don’t you got something in your shooting pouch you can grab it with, Titus?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “What’s a fella use when he’s got a ball stuck down his barrel and you’re wanting to pull it out?” />
  “I got a screw I put on the end of my wiping stick.”

  “Yeah, I know—but when you got the screw into the ball, what you use to yank hard on the wiping stick get that stuck ball out?”

  It came to him all at once. “That just might work. Get me my pouch.”

  Heman Ovatt flung the shooting pouch his way. Scrounging at the bottom of the front section of the pouch, Bass pulled out the forged-iron tongs he had never used all that much.

  “Them looks like they’ll work,” Kingsbury declared.

  “Hames, help pull that meat outta my way,” Titus told the boatman. As Kingsbury tugged the muscle in one direction, Bass eased it down in the other. Working his fingers back into the incision, he touched the rounded end of the arrow point once more. Slipping the small, narrow tongs into the incision, he guided them into position, clamped them around the point, and began to pull; “Damn, but that’s stuck in there.”

  “Work on it—it’ll come,” Ovatt said.

  Rocking it back and forth slightly, Titus felt it begin to give way, eventually freeing itself from its lock in that biggest bone in the human body. Carefully he slid it from the deep incision, captured between the tongs. Holding the point up to the light for a moment, Titus turned it around slowly so all could see.

  “We best save that for him,” Kingsbury said.

  “That’s for sure,” Root agreed. “He’ll be one mad kingfish gone alligator-horse if’n we throw that away!”

  “He might even wear it on a cord round his neck,” Hames predicted.

  They washed the wound out with hot water, then pried open Zane’s lips so they could extract a little of the tobacco quid he had pulverized inside his cheek before passing out. Kingsbury pressed the dark, soupy leaf and spittle down into the laceration. They finished by cutting a strip of cloth from the bottom of Ebenezer’s spare shirt and knotting it around his leg. With a pair of blankets pulled over their leader, the three boatmen decided they would draw lots to take watch until dawn, when they would once more set off downriver.

  Root happily sat up the first pull, and Kingsbury took the second watch. An hour or more back now, Hames had awakened Titus with an insistent nudge.