Buffalo Palace

by Terry C. Johnston

“I am, a’times. What’s the toll for a plug?”

  “Ten for a dollar.”

  “That’s steep.”

  “It’s American—and it’s come a fur distance, mister. Kentucky, I’m told. Freighted down the Ohio, then up the Missouri.” Henline scratched at a fleshy jowl again as he eyed the coins Titus set one by one down on the meal-dusted counter. “Tell you what I’ll do: with what you got left there … I can make you a good trade—fifteen for the dollar.”

  “How much ’baccy that gimme?” he asked suspiciously.

  With his beefy hands Henline began to pull out the carrots, counting out loud as two of the woman’s children inched close, intently studying the process, their eyes just above counter level. When he was done, the storekeeper again rubbed his hands down the front of his dirty pullover shirt and said, “Sixty of them twists—makes for four dollars’ worth. So that should just about use up the last of what you got left there.”

  Instead of agreeing immediately, Titus regarded the immense pile of dark twists of fragrant burly. Taking one from the stack, he brought it to his nose and sniffed in appraisal. “Kentucky, you said?”

  “So I’m told. Fine smoking. Even finer a chew—if I do say so my own self.”

  “And this here sixty twists will finish me off?”

  “Less’n you got more money hid on you,” Henline replied, a fat paw beginning to sweep the last of Bass’s coins toward his side of the counter, “there ain’t no more you can spend.”

  Firmly, yet without a hint of malice, Titus quickly clamped his hand down on the storekeeper’s wrist, looking Bailey Henline in the eyes. “That what you got under this hand pays for the tobaccy—”

  “I done said that,” Henline interrupted with irritation that mottled his cheeks in anger.

  “And,” Bass continued, “… pays off all the candy for them young’uns there.” Titus nodded once toward the far end of the counter where the woman and the children stood watching like a gaggle of wide-eyed geese, frozen for the moment beside the colored jars of sugared treats.

  Immediately shaking his head, Henline uttered the first sounds of protest—but they were squeezed off as Titus clenched the wrist all the harder.

  “Listen, mister: you’re making a fine profit on me this day,” Bass said with quiet assurance. “Enough a profit you can give these here young’uns their treat ’thout it weighing down this woman’s account.”

  For a long moment the shopkeeper looked down at the hand holding his wrist prisoner, then glanced over at the woman. Reluctantly, he nodded. “Awright. The treats is on you, mister.”

  Taking his hand off the storekeeper, Titus glanced quickly to the side, not sure if he read gratitude in the woman’s eyes, or scorn because she wanted none of his pity.

  “This here’s American all right,” Henline declared as he finished sweeping up all the coins together and shoving them deep within the side pocket on his drop-front button britches. “Cain’t ever be too sure out here in this country—what’s good money and what’s not. Guineas, pistoles—”

  “My money was always good, Mr. Henline. Worked hard for it, and I was always one to give a man my sweat for a day’s pay.”

  “Franklin’s damn well the last place on the road you chose to take,” the shopkeeper emphasized with a roll of his eyes in that direction. “On west of here is Fort Osage. Only other place yonder’n that is Fort Atkinson. At Osage the river changes course, runs north from there up to Atkinson, you see.”

  The name pricked him. Titus leaned in a little to ask, “Ain’t that the place, the fort you just said—the one they built at the mouth of the Platte?”

  “That’s right, mister. You figure to ride through Pawnee land, by the time you reach Atkinson—a man turns himself left and heads due west as the sun goes.”

  With a shake of his head Bass replied, “I ain’t got me any plans to be riding nowhere close to Atkinson.”

  “Maybe for the best,” Henline declared as he stuffed the last of the tobacco twists into a fourth and fifth linen sack and began to tie off the tops with length of twine cordage. “Up and down this part of the river, word is that the army don’t want no one in that yonder country out there … no man but soldiers and them fur companies.”

  “I heard such, yes.”

  With a smile creasing the fleshy jowls, Henline ventured, “Hell, maybe it’s better you spend some time behind the bars in that army pokey up at Fort Atkinson than you lose your hair to them bugger Pawnee.”

  Sweeping the first of the satchels from the storekeeper’s counter, Bass replied, “I don’t plan on spending no time with the army or leaving my hair with the Pawnee. Thank you just the same for the meal, coffee, and tobaccy.” He hefted the last of his goods across both laden arms and turned toward that doorway patch of bright sun splaying a fan of its bright saffron into the shop’s cool shadows.

  Just as Titus reached the door, he stopped to step aside for a pair of mud-caked men who eyed the newcomer before striding dutifully over to the row of wooden dowels driven into one wall where stood several tall, two-man saws.

  “Thank you, mister,” the woman said suddenly, blurting it out as if honor bound to express her gratitude, but then her eyes softened as she tugged a child to her hip beneath each arm. “Tell the man thankee, children.”

  They all shyly muttered their appreciation—every bit as prideful as their mother—eyes watching the stranger shuffle his feet self-consciously, his arms sagging beneath the weight of the last worldly goods he would buy for hard cash money.

  “I was … I’m glad to do it,” Titus replied, glancing over the faces of the children as they licked and sucked on their treats. How they reminded him of Amy’s brothers and sisters back in Rabbit Hash.

  Then Henline intruded. “Stranger—since you’re of a mind to go out yonder to that saint-forsaken land on your lonesome—you mind my asking one more thing?”

  “What’s that?” Titus responded, turning his head from the young eyes to look at the storekeeper. At that very moment Bass became aware the two men had ceased their talk and their noisy handling of the saws behind him.

  Scratching at the side of his pockmarked nose, Henline inquired, “Mind telling me if … well, if you’re a praying man?”

  For but a moment Titus glanced at the mud-plastered pair who interrupted their appraisal of the saws so they could study him critically. Plain enough to see they were settlers. Farmers. Had the same look to them that Thaddeus Bass had himself.

  When Titus brought his eyes back to the storekeeper, finding himself suddenly irritated at the way Henline’s jaw hung open smugly, Bass almost wished one of the big bottle-green flies buzzing about the low-roofed shanty would flit its way right into that gaping hole in Bailey Henline’s face.

  Titus repeated the question. “A praying man? Well, now. I s’pose any fella what takes off where I’m heading all on my lonesome better be a praying man, mister. That—or he’s plain crazy.”

  2

  “That trader man was wrong, mister.”

  With the sudden sound of the child’s voice, Titus turned where he stood at the edge of the muddy, rutted path that passed for a main street here in Franklin. It was the oldest girl among that woman’s brood wanting hard candy back in the mercantile. Bass continued stuffing the first of the cornmeal sacks into the bundles lashed on either side of the mare’s back.

  “Oh?” he asked absently. “What was he so wrong about?”

  “This’r ain’t the last place you run onto.”

  “It ain’t.”

  “No, mister. It ain’t.”

  Jabbing the second sack down into the bundle on the far side of the mare’s packs, Titus figured he was being goaded into asking. He sighed with a little exasperation, then glanced again at the gangly girl who appeared about to enter her adolescence—and the impatience drained from him. She so reminded him of his oldest sister. Every day slowly rounded out those hard angles on her body now that she was ready to flower into womanhood.


  “All right,” he said. “S’pose you tell me what you come to tell me.”

  “See: this’r ain’t the last place there’s white folks.”

  “Just what the devil that mean to me?” He growled it more than he had wanted it to come out, turning away because he was angry at himself—in that moment remembering how he had marveled at the way another young girl’s bony form rounded itself into a woman’s body back in Rabbit Hash.

  “Means there’s white folks on yonder,” the girl declared, then pointed, turning away with a gesture to the north. “Mama said for me to come tell you that.”

  His fingers stopped their tying of the canvas lashes. “Your mama in there … she told you come tell me that?”

  With a nod the girl replied, “Our place is up to Boone’s Lick. I figger she’s due for a vis’tor. Ever since’t my da took sick and died sudden-like late last summer—we ain’t had all that much in the way of company. Mama ain’t much of a talker, but I knows she tires of us’ns—”

  “Your … father died?”

  She nodded again. “Mama took it real hard.”

  “You mean she’s caring for you young’uns on your place all by herself?”

  “No. We got my uncle and his wife with us. But Mama works out to the fields like Da used to, and my auntie cares to us chirrun and the meals.”

  He stared off to the north. “Just up to Boone’s Lick, you say?”

  “Yes, mister.”

  “That a town?”

  “Not likely, it ain’t. Just a bunch of folks settled nearby to one ’nother and give the place a name years back.”

  “After Dan’l Boone, I’ll wager.”

  “Truth be, I dunno.”

  “Likely they done so, girl,” he replied as he yanked on the last knot. “Same Boone what they named the county for where at I was born and raised up.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Kentucky,” he finally said, the word hard to come out at first, fraught the way it was with so many memories both good and bad—like more strands of a sticky spider’s web than he could ever free himself from.

  “So, mister—you come see us?”

  He looked back at the girl again, mystified by the invitation … although he understood. Many were the folks who lived their lives set apart from others, only to gather at Sunday services, for funerals and weddings and baptisms—along with the annual Longhunter Fair. Theirs was the lone and hardy stock who took great pleasure in the infrequent passerby who carried news of distant people and places.

  Titus asked, “That what your mama told you come ask me?”

  Openmouthed, she nodded. “Said you got our welcome to come by on your way upriver.”

  Glancing over the girl’s shoulder, for the first time he noticed two of the younger children standing in the store’s open doorway, watching the stranger and their sister. “You’re on your way back to home now?”

  “Mama said to tell you be ahead on your way and we’d come along shortly.”

  “You riding?”

  The girl giggled quickly behind her hand, her eyes twinkling as she answered, “Hell no.” Then her faced flushed in embarrassment. “Y-you won’t tell Mama I cursed, w-will you?”

  With a smile and a wag of his head, Titus loosened the packmare’s halter, then reached for the rein to the Indian pony. He bent his head down to whisper, “That’s our secret. I swear it.”

  “Just that … all we got left us is that one ol’ mule,” and she pointed across the rutted path at the animal. “Does all our plowing, and we bring it to town with us for to carry home all what we take out on barter from Mr. Henline in there.”

  His heart felt a tug at that moment, staring at the old mule, the way it hung its head and kept weight off one of its legs. Clearly, the hock was swollen with spavin. Easy enough to see that it wouldn’t be long before the mule came up lame on them. “You sure your mama wants me to stop by?”

  “She said so for me to tell you.”

  “I can’t be stopping off every place I go by now,” he grumbled, suddenly perturbed at the intrusion on his journey. Bass jabbed his left foot in the stirrup of the worn saddle.

  “Mama said to tell you she figured you look like’n you needed a home-cooked meal.” The girl prodded, taking a step forward as Titus rose onto the back of the pony. “Likely you ain’t had none such in quite a time.”

  He opened his mouth to snap back at her about no longer needing no home-cooked meals … then decided better. Why, it did sound good. But, just the same, he had some new victuals of his own—so he wasn’t all that bad off. Best to keep pushing on.

  “I got me a long, long way to go, girl. You tell your mama—”

  “Last place a body gets to talk with civil white folks,” she blurted in.

  Impatient to be on his way, Titus was on the verge of tapping heels into the pony’s ribs when he stopped and brooded on that. “No other place on yonder from you? Now, I can’t believe that.”

  “There’s the forts upriver,” and she flung an arm in that general direction. “Soldiers, traders. Men come down from upriver. But there ain’t no more plain white working folk after us. Mama thought you’d like to have yourself a hot meal and maybe some man talk with my uncle.”

  Slowly he turned to gaze at the doorway once again. A third small face had poked itself around the jamb—watching expectantly.

  “All right,” he answered, not all that sure of his resolve, “You go tell your mama I’m most grateful for her kindness … and tell her I’ll feel better riding along home with your bunch. Now, be off with you and have your mama finish up inside so we can get on our way. Gonna be getting dark soon enough as it is.”

  Twilight was just beginning to squeeze the last light of the day from the sky when the girl and her oldest brother led the lot of them up a wide path into the yard surrounding four squat buildings and a half-dozen rickety pole lean-tos. After introductions the flush-faced aunt announced that supper was simmering over the fire and ready soon as everyone washed up and sat themselves down.

  “Your belly ready for that home-cooked meal I promised you?” the widow asked Titus, her dark-gray eyes finally meeting his again for the first time since they began their walk north from Franklin.

  The eyes softened as he gazed back at them … and the voice was nice enough too. “I’m always ready, yes, ma’am.”

  Night came down easily, and the breeze had kicked up by the time Bass shoved himself away from the long, crude table and rose from his half-log bench, its legs scraping across the puncheon floor. The woman’s brother-in-law got to his feet along with Titus, turning to retrieve a pipe and tobacco pouch from the stone mantel above the fireplace, which provided the only light for the low-roofed room besides a dozen or more candles and Betty lamps filled with oil he figured could only have been rendered from a bear.

  “Let’s us use my tobaccy,” Bass suggested. “Find some way to pay you back for that meal.”

  “No paying back necessary,” the widow replied from across the table as she rose, her hands filled with wooden trenchers. “You already done that at Bailey Henline’s shop.”

  Plainly needled, the man kept his eyes on Titus as he asked his sister-in-law, “What you go and get yourself in debt with Bailey for now?”

  “She don’t owe nobody nothing,” Bass quickly intervened, putting his hand up as the widow was about to protest. “I had me a little something extra after trading with the man. And them young’uns was just having ’em a gander at the hard candy. I paid for ’em to have a sweet treat. Didn’t amount to nothing.”

  “An’ you have y’ some of Henline’s tobaccy?”

  Bass nodded. “Mine now. I’ll be off to fetch it.”

  The two of them settled out front beneath the narrow porch awning on half-log stools, leaning back against the rough-log wall chinked with Missouri clay, and slowly sucked down more than one bowlful apiece that evening. While the settler dragged out as much news as he could about what all was happening downriver i
n St. Louis and beyond, Titus pried out as much information as he could on what lay upriver.

  “Fort Osage be a fella’s next stop,” the man declared. “South bank. But—you cain’t count on soldiers and folks allays being there.”

  “They closed the fort down?”

  “Not all the time.”

  “How far?” Bass inquired.

  With a shrug he answered, “Only been up that way once afore. Can’t really say. It’s a piece.”

  “How many days you figure?”

  “You ain’t got no ragtag along and can keep your horses on the scat—I’d figure a little better’n a week.”

  “That long?” And he watched the settler nod, drawing on his pipe, then dropped his eyes to peer into the bowl the way the man did after nearly every puff.

  “Fine tobaccy, this,” the man offered after a moment of silence between them.

  “You know anything of what’s north of Osage?”

  “Next place be Atkinson’s post. If, like you said, you’re hankering to foller the Platte west, I hear that’s where you pick up the river what’ll take you all the way to them far mountains.”

  The sound of that distant country made his mouth dry then and there. It seemed like he’d journeyed so damned far already. Fifteen winters it was—as far back as 1810 … as far east as Kentucky in the great bend country of the Ohio River. And lately it seemed everyone he ran into was telling him he’d only begun his journey. From what he’d seen, maybeso those folks were right.

  Back east on the Ohio and the great Mississippi, in those forests and along the trails and traces—things weren’t really all that spread out and far apart. Even in traveling the wilderness along the Natchez Trace, a man knew he would come across a stand—a wayside inn—with some frequency. But from what he had seen out here already … not only was a man running out of folks and settlements, it was as if the land itself damn well seemed to be growing all the bigger on him the farther west he set his feet down.

  While the sky domed overhead, endlessly stretching to the western horizon, the country itself he was crossing appeared to swell with every mile he put behind him. And more than once he had come near scaring himself to the marrow, just to think that by some underhanded jigger-pokey magic the land puffed itself up beneath him like a lister, making it so those far mountains arose farther and farther away the faster he rode to find them, the harder he yearned to have that first glimpse of them.