Buffalo Palace

by Terry C. Johnston

  Should he stand or sit or lie for this first shot he would make at the bull grazing contentedly down the slope? And as quickly he decided he would sit, knees bent, elbows locked within his legs to steady the long-barreled, heavy, iron-mounted rifle.

  Now he pulled the graceful curve of the hammer all the way back to full-cock. Bass quickly licked the pad of his right thumb before running the thumb across the sharp, knapped edge of the huge gray flint that lay imprisoned within the screw jaws of the hammer. He brought the thumb away and inspected it, finding a thin, telltale black line of powder flash he had just wiped off the flint. Better that this be no misfire because of powder residue built up on the knapped surface.

  Then, as he nestled the full curvature of the butt plate into the crook of his shoulder, Bass let out a sigh.

  “Easy now, Titus,” he whispered barely under his breath, aware that he was growing all the more anxious with every pounding beat of his heart.

  He hadn’t felt this way but few times before—and they all came with being close to a warm and scented woman. Even his first back in Boone County. Amy Whistler had been a woman in all respects, he recalled fondly. Not taking herself a husband as early as most girls did on the frontier, she had instead waited for young Titus Bass, pressing him to complete his schooling before he took up the plow to work that portion of the family lands that Titus’s father would turn over to his firstborn son. But she was like Marissa Guthrie, who came to trouble his life a few years later, quickly becoming the one woman he felt he could truly love with all his heart—in the end both women had sought to tie him to the soil when what he wanted most was to wander.

  If either had shown any interest in his way of life rather than their fathers’, he likely would have asked one or the other to join him in venturing west. But with both Titus knew better. Neither young woman would have taken to this dangerous, challenging existence the way he had. Truth was, neither woman was daring enough, nor was either of them the sort to take that grave risk this frontier required of all who ventured beyond the pale. Simply put, he had long ago realized that both Amy and Marissa were not the sort to leap into the unknown as he had.

  Taking on a woman was pure foolishness, he had determined some time back. To do so was to lash oneself to a single place, to imprison oneself with the land and young’uns and all the shoulds it would take to near suffocate a man. Better that he was alone, he reminded himself now, angrily. Far, far better was it to be here without some woman’s whining cant constantly at his ear.

  Slowly he brought the brass front blade down onto the back of the yearling’s front shoulder—suddenly realizing he had no idea where to aim on such an animal. Then quickly Titus convinced himself he would aim as he would at any four-legged: the heart and lights were in there, close behind the leg, after all.

  With the front blade held near the midline of the young bull, Bass brought that brass blade down into the crescent of the buckhorn rear sight. Then raised his sight picture even higher on the animal since he was shooting downslope. With the pad of his index finger he gently pulled on the rear trigger, setting the front trigger to something less than a hair’s response. Then he began squeezing while he held his breath—

  The rifle shoved itself back into his shoulder, surprising him as the muzzle spat fire. In that fraction of a moment before the pan and muzzle smoke obscured his view, Bass saw the small puff of dust erupt from the blackish hide—meaning the lead ball had struck the yearling high on the rib cage, above midline.

  Quickly he rolled onto his knees, yanking the rifle’s muzzle to his lips to blow down the long barrel as he watched the animal sidestep and thrash its head a few times … then it went back to eating after it had attempted to lick at its side, that long pink tongue darting out against the backdrop of that dark, shaggy coat. It lazily cropped a few more mouthfuls of the tall grass while Titus poured down a measured charge of powder, then sank the ball home within its nest of a greased patch with the long hickory ramrod. Quickly he flipped back the graceful goosenecked hammer, popping forward the frizzen before he sprinkled in more of the priming powder.

  Down came the frizzen over the pan, his thumb continuing on back to pull the hammer to full-cock as he brought the rifle up to his shoulder, settling back on his rump.

  “By damn, I’ll hold this lady lower on you this time,” he muttered, laying the brass blade down into the notch filed in the bottom of the buckhorn rear sight.

  Just at the bull’s midline the second bullet struck the young buffalo—causing him to sidestep again with a grunt, twisting his massive, furry head to the side to inspect his hide where that second ball had made another dusty eruption.

  “Shit,” he grumbled as he rocked to his knees and began the reloading process once more, angry with himself for muffing that second shot. It had been too long for him to remember the last time he had needed two shots to drop some game, much less three.

  Maybe it was the angle of his shot, he decided as he held once more on the dark creature still standing below him at the base of the slope, grazing as if those half-inch lead balls had been no more than tormenting mosquitoes slapping him.

  This time Titus determined he would hold low, down on the brisket behind the front leg, and squeezed the trigger.

  With a shudder the yearling sidled a bit, then collapsed of a sudden, his legs gone out from under him as if all four of them had been cut at the same moment.

  “Damn you anyway,” Titus mumbled as he rocked back onto his knees, reloading quickly, keeping his eyes on the fallen beast while he did so.

  Other buffalo grazing nearby now meandered up to give their fallen comrade a sniff or two, and a few even licked at the bloody hide before they moseyed on off to resume their feeding. While some raised their shiny black noses into the air to measure the wind for some scent of danger, most took little notice of the two-legged creature inching his way down the grassy slope until he was within fifty yards. The first beast to notice the hunter turned his body so that he appeared ready to confront the intruder, raising his muzzle into the air to determine just what sort of creature this was approaching the edge of the herd.

  With a snort and a bellow, the old bull wheeled about and set off at an ungainly lope, his warning cry enough to drive a hundred or more before him. In moments the nearby prairie lay empty except for the fallen yearling. Then, as suddenly as they had bolted into action, the rest of the thousands rolled to a halt half a mile away and resumed their grazing, their numbers darkening the rounded hills in places, blanketing the prairie with solid black in others.

  The air was growing hotter when Bass reached the carcass, cautiously approaching it, his rifle leveled at the yearling, expecting it just might leap up any moment. Then he caught a glimpse of his own shadow cast upon the grass as he crept stealthily around the carcass and stopped, laughing out loud at just how silly that shadow appeared.

  When he quit laughing at himself, Titus inched forward carefully and jabbed at the buffalo with the muzzle of the rifle.

  “Sure ’nough dead, ain’cha.”

  On its dark, curly coat, Bass recognized the shiny patches of blood where the first two shots had struck.

  “Can’t aim high,” he muttered as he measured where that first shot had connected. “And that’un in the middle didn’t bring you down neither, did it?”

  Only the one low on the brisket, there behind the front leg. Bass rubbed the spot with the muzzle of the flintlock as if to embed its location within his mind. Lucky, he thought now, that the creatures didn’t tear off once they heard the boom of the big gun. Maybe buffalo didn’t hear all that good. And the way that huge bull momentarily stood in challenge to him, long, shaggy fur dangling over its eyes—perhaps these creatures were half-blind as well as being near deaf.

  Easy enough for a man to creep up near them, Titus thought. They ain’t a wary, watchful critter when it comes to danger. No wonder they got themselves killed off back east.

  Stepping around to venture inside the sprawl
of the four legs, he knelt on one knee.

  “Now, how you s’pose a body’s to go about dressing such a big critter?”

  Laying his rifle in the crook of the bull’s neck, Titus removed the big skinning knife from the scabbard hanging at the back of his belt. Checking one last time at the horizon to the west and north, Bass hefted the left front leg, locked it over his shoulder, and plunged the knife into the furry throat. Using a sawing motion, he dragged the sharp blade back a few inches at a time through the thick hide, down the breastbone and across the belly, until he was confronted with the huge ham of that hind leg, all but impossible to move by himself. Nothing else to do but try his hand at some skinning.

  “So be it,” Bass decided, now putting his knife to work slowly inching the curly hide back from the long incision.

  Jerking his bloody hands back suddenly, he stared at the tiny insects swarming over his flesh all the way up to the elbows where he had rolled his shirtsleeves. Smearing more blood on himself, Titus brushed from each arm the tiny, hopping fleas along with several fat ticks so swollen they were about to burst. He caught one between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing it until it popped with a bloody ooze, then tossed it aside. Titus went back to work, gradually working the hide back from that first long cut.

  It took some doing, but he had almost half of the furry coat laid on the far side of the animal by the time the sun was well into the second quarter of the sky. Standing back to catch his breath and wipe the sweat from his face with the back of a bloody hand, Bass regarded his work to that point, figuring he would have to decide on what portions to pack with him as he continued his journey west to the far mountains.

  Laying a knee against the massive rib cage, Titus next butchered a few long steaks from between the hump ribs, tossing each portion onto the green flap of hide draped across the grass on the far side of the carcass. Then he peeled back more of the hide from the rear leg until he could cut himself out two large hams.

  At last he stood, using the knife to scrape off the blood, gore, and tiny vermin from each forearm before stuffing the blade back into its scabbard. Taking up his rifle once more, Titus turned away from the carcass, hurrying back toward his camp.

  Once there he quickly rearranged each of the two packs so that he could lay his meat in between them along the packmare’s spine, then cover it with the saddle and finally the canvas shroud he would fling over it all. Leading the mare down the ravine and onto the prairie floor, he skirted along the side of the hill to reach the carcass.

  “Damn you!” he growled when he got close enough to see the creatures clustered around the young bull.

  Scurvy, thieving dogs they were.

  “Get!” he bellowed.

  Most raised their heads. A few growled at him menacingly. “G’won! Get, I told you!” he hollered louder still, dropping the mare’s lead rope and darting toward the carcass, swinging his rifle from side to side.

  Most slinked off a ways, but three dropped to a crouch, snarling, their bloody muzzles showing now they had worked up a blood hunger dining at the bull’s innards. As Bass drew close enough, one of them sprang at him, snapping its jaws.

  In a blur he brought the rifle butt up, connecting right beneath the creature’s lower jaw with a resounding crack. Immediately the second of the predators lunged for him as Bass continued swinging, wading into their midst. By the time two of the creatures lay wounded nearby, the rest decided retreat would offer the best path.

  Yet they did not retreat far. Some thirty yards off the dozen or so turned as if on cue and sat down among the prairie grass to stare back at him and their feast.

  “This is mine, goddammit!” he howled at them, his voice loud in the stillness of those far hills. “Mine, you hear?” he said a bit more quietly, mustering all the bravado he could, and pounded his chest one time with his left fist to emphasize his claim.

  Quickly he bent over each one of the mangy creatures in turn, then brought the rifle butt down to crush their skulls for good measure.

  “See?” he turned and asked of the pack sitting a safe distance away. “If’n you ain’t seen enough, I’ll show you what’s done to thieving sonsabitches like you!”

  Suddenly he jerked up the rifle, dropped the blade on the center dog, set the back trigger, then pulled the front. As the roar and muzzle smoke disappeared, he watched the other dogs suddenly leap away in retreat—leaving one more of their dead among the tall grass.

  “Don’t you ever dare come slipping in on my kill no more, I. tell you!” he grumbled as he began reloading.

  Out on the prairie one of the predators slunk back in to sniff at its dead companion Bass had just shot. Then another, and a third. Pretty soon they were tearing at the dead one in a fury of hunger.

  “Black-hearted sonsabitches. Damned dog-critters—just you go get!”

  With the rifle reloaded and laid again in the curve of the yearling’s neck, Titus dragged the canvas cover and saddle off the mare’s back so he could lay in what meat he would take with him. At last he straightened the canvas over the two packs and began lashing it down in a diamond-hitch to protect everything from any rain they might encounter. He had lost all his cornmeal flour in that drenching they had suffered crossing the capricious Platte River—but the coffee beans and tobacco had dried out nicely, spread out on the canvas overnight. He would miss his johnny bread: the smell, the taste, the texture of corn dodgers in his mouth. Adding pinches of clean ash from the fire as he had stirred up a batch of corn biscuits, his mouth watered with the thought. But there would be no such bread from here on out.

  Then he realized: oftentimes if a man really wanted to grab hold of something, he had to let go his grip of something else. Maybeso his bidding farewell to those pasty sacks of cornmeal back there by the muddy river just left a hand empty and open to grab on to something new that might well present itself on down the trail. Best just to forget all that he had left behind in the settlements, and that included those sacks of Franklin cornmeal.

  Besides, Titus reminded himself again as he took up the lead rope, tonight for the first time in his life he would sup on buffalo.

  Yes, he sighed as he stared at the horizon and charted his course toward the western hills for the rest of that morning—his fortunes just might be about to change out here in this wild land. True enough—he was about due for things to go his way … for the very first time in his life.

  For the next few days he had found massive clumps of coarse buffalo fur clinging to the brush and bark of nearly every small tree near the riverbank. Each time he shot one of the shaggy creatures in the weeks to follow, he was constantly reminded how summer must surely be on its way to this land—if not there already—for the buffalo were shedding their heavy winter coats.

  Every few days as he encountered another herd, Titus would shoot another yearling—far tastier and more flavorful than the beef and pork he had grown accustomed to back east, even better than the game meat he had grown up on in the forests of Kentucky. The savory fragrance of each loin steak or batch of hump ribs he set to sizzle over his fire each evening caused his mouth to water in anticipation. Bass had never eaten anything better than buffalo and doubted he would ever find any meat that could surpass it.

  So he taught himself to cut free a large section of each green hide in which he would wrap those choice selections he had butchered from each kill, that satchel to be carried by his most obedient packmare. Each of those pieces of hide he found to be all but rubbed free of the last tufts of last winter’s hair still clinging to the animal’s midsection and hindquarters. Protected inside that green hide satchel, the meat would last the better part of three days or so before he would be forced to leave behind what had gone sour on him and compelled to hunt fresh game.

  Those longest of days tumbled past in slow succession as high summer arrived and he reached the forks of the Platte.

  “Damn if Isaac Washburn didn’t tell me none of this,” he grumbled in confusion bordering on exasperation the
afternoon he reached that union of the north and south forks.

  But as frustrated as he was, in the end Titus decided to stay with the northernmost. The way he saw things, it only made sense because that was where he should be headed after all: to the central if not the northern reaches of the Rocky Mountains. Washburn had mentioned nothing of those southern mountains, failing to say if there even were mountains down in that country. So if ol’ Gut hadn’t said nothing about it—why, then, Bass figured there wasn’t much worth concerning himself about down south anyways.

  Sure enough, the old trapper had been right on target with most everything he had told Titus before he got himself killed back there in St. Louis. Right about everything except that warning about the Pawnee who lived along the Platte. There had been plenty enough chance to bump right into them all along. Yet except for running across sign of that village migrating along the great river before its trail started moseying its way off to the north away from the Platte, Titus hadn’t seen a feather or war pony either one.

  “Nothing more’n pure, dumb luck,” he had muttered to himself more than once in all those weeks since, thinking back how consumed with caution and cold camps he had been.

  Dumb luck—which meant he walked straight on through Pawnee country without a single run-in. Far better luck than ol’ Gut and Hugh Glass had themselves when they had headed east to St. Louis, deviled by the Pawnee near the whole way.

  Days past those forks, the country started to evolve once more as he pushed ever westward, leading that packmare day after day, wearing down the soles of his first pair of Washburn’s moccasins and starting on the second. As the ground beneath his feet was crusting into a flaky hardpan, Titus worried so much about walking himself out of his last two pairs of moccasins that he took to cutting pieces of green buffalo hide he could lash around the soles of his thinning footwear.