“Damn right he can, Harris,” Titus said, watching Hargrove’s eyes fill with concern. “The man what got his pistol aimed at you ain’t no peach-faced farmboy bully like these three you got pointing guns at me. Tell ’im, Harris. Tell ’im how Shadrach’s killed Injuns from the Musselshell clear down to the Arkansas, some of ’em with his bare hands too. These snot-nosed bully-boys of your’n ever done anything more’n jump on some poor farmer, three to one?”
“Lemme shoot him,” one of the trio growled at Hargrove, his crimson face flushing with anger. “Benjamin can shoot the big one got a gun on you—”
“No!” Hargrove shouted, then repeated it softer, “No. There’s no need for any shooting. If this man will release my arm, the four of us will be on our way. There’s no sense in shedding any blood, boys. We’ll be gone from here day after tomorrow. On our way to Fort Hall and California. Right, Mr. Harris?”
“That’s right.” Harris took a step closer to Bass.
“Maybe someone ought’n tie you up to ’nother tree, Harris,” Scratch warned. “Leave you out there to die.”
The pilot’s face went hard as stone. “No one ever gonna tie me up to no tree again—”
“Hard to show these fellas all the way to Californy,” Bass said, “if’n you’re tied to a tree somewhere out there in the hills.”
“I got lots o’ friends now, so there ain’t no chance of that,” Harris snorted.
Scratch said, “Leastways, till you go an’ get drunk.”
“About time you let go of me,” Hargrove repeated.
Slowly Titus began to open the fingers on his left hand, while he inched his hand toward the pistol stuffed in the front of his belt. The captain quickly yanked his arm free, slapping the calf of his leg with the wide leather strands of that horsewhip as he lunged a step backward. His eyes went back and forth between the two trappers.
Then Hargrove said, “You’ll keep an eye out for these two, won’t you, Harris? Let me know if you see them coming around again—between now and the time we’ll pull out for Fort Hall.”
“He’s your lookout boy now?” Titus asked.
“I’ll come let ye know,” Harris growled.
“You allays was a good bootlicker,” Sweete finally spoke, for the first time in minutes. “Didn’t have much good sense of your own—but you was awright when your booshway told you where to shit an’ how to wipe your ass.”
“Damn you—” Harris started toward Sweete but stopped suddenly as he watched Shad shift the direction of his pistol.
“G’won now, train boss,” Scratch suggested. “Better you an’ your coward bully-boys go see what trouble you can cause other folks. I won’t let you cause no trouble for this here family.”
He watched Hargrove’s head turn as the captain regarded the farmer with his family gathered nearby. “What concern are they of yours?”
Bass said nothing, but as Amanda was opening her mouth to speak, Titus shook his head.
“You related to her somehow?” Hargrove asked. “That it? That dumb farmer Burwell can’t fight his own battles—he’s got to bring in his missus and her relations to stand up for him.”
“Thought you was goin’,” Scratch said.
“I am.”
Hargrove got four steps away before he stopped and turned around. “I don’t know your name, or what any of this has to do with you … but, I want to suggest you stay out of our camp, and out of our way until we depart day after tomorrow.”
“Why’s that?”
The captain wore a half grin on his face. “Just a suggestion. You’d be wise not to let any of my men catch you around my camp.”
Bass watched the man move off, trailed by Harris and those three hired toughs who reminded Scratch of the sort of thugs who peopled every riverport town along the Ohio and lower Mississippi. Amanda moved up with her husband and children at the same time.
“I didn’t need none of your help,” growled the big farmer who stomped up to stop before the trappers.
That caught Scratch by surprise. From the looks of Burwell’s red face, the man was mad as a spit-on hen at most everyone in general right now. And he recalled how Amanda had spoken of her husband being proud to a fault. “I sure didn’t mean to step into your business none—”
“It is my business,” Burwell snapped. “And it’ll please me if you stay out.”
“Roman,” Amanda said at his side, “I’m the one you ought to blame.”
He twisted around and glared at her. “You?”
“I saw them come up to the meeting, went over to tell my pa why we hadn’t come for supper. So if you’re going to blame anyone for helping you stand up to Hargrove, blame me.”
His jaw jutted, the ropy muscles below the temple flexing as the big farmer worked her confession over and over in his mind. “I … I got my pride,” he said quietly.
Bass thought that as good an apology as the farmer could bring himself to utter. “If there’s one thing I unnerstand, it’s pride, son. You don’t owe me no more words to explain. You don’t want my help, I’ll stay clear o’ your troubles.”
“I can accept that,” Burwell replied, the harshness suddenly gone from his eyes. He watched his children, two boys and a pair of girls, happily rubbing the bony backs of those two lanky dogs for a moment, then turned to ask, “You really Amanda’s pa?”
“Proud to say I am.” He held out his hand. “She said your name was Roman. Awright I call you that?”
Burwell grinned as if all that bristling uneasiness of their first meeting was forgotten as he brought up his big paw that easily swallowed the old trapper’s hand. “My friends back to home always called me Row. That’d be fine by me, for Amanda’s father to call me Row.”
Shad cleared his throat for attention.
“Shame on me,” Scratch scolded himself. “Where’s my manners? Get over here, Shad. This here’s my good friend, Shadrach Sweete. An’ that’s my oldest child, Amanda.”
“Should I shake your hand, ma’am?” Shad inquired as he stuffed his pistol back in his belt.
Amanda grinned a little, saying, “Of course it’s all right.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Sweete replied as he stuck out his big arm and quickly bent at the waist. “Been a while since I been in the company of a proper white lady.”
She winked at her father. “I’m no proper lady, Mr. Sweete. But thank you for your manners anyway.”
“Be pleased to have you to call me Shad—like all my friends do.”
As Roman and Sweete shook hands, Amanda held out her left arm for her eldest son. “Pa, this here’s Lemuel.”
“You look old enough to shake hands, son.”
Lemuel Burwell said, “I turned twelve this past spring, just before we set off from Westport.”
“Likely you’re a big help to your pa, ain’cha?” Titus asked.
Roman said, “He does ever’thing he can to help out on the road to Oregon.”
“Who are these pretty girls?” Titus inquired.
The oldest nodded slightly, clearly self-conscious. “Leah,” she said in a modest voice.
“Leah, that’s such a purty name,” he said. “How old are you?”
“Just turned ten.”
“You really our grandpa?” asked the other girl as she sidled forward beside the oldest sister.
Bass said. “Would that disapp’int you—to find out a feller like me is your grandpa?”
“My, no!” she exclaimed. “Just wish I could take you to school back at home to show you off to the other’ns.”
He laughed at that. “Good idee from such a li’l girl. What’s your name?”
“I’m Annie,” she replied. “Sometimes my mama calls me Spitfire Annie.”
Quickly flashing a look up at his daughter, Titus asked the girl, “Why your mama call you that?”
“I dunno for sure. Maybe ’cause I get in trouble, Mama?”
With a grin, Amanda nodded. “That could be, Annie.”
Annie never took
her eyes off her grandfather. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Titus, Titus Bass,” he replied. “But my friends like Shadrach here, they all call me by a name what was give to me many winters ago when I first come to these here mountains. Like you’re called Spitfire.”
Lemuel asked, “What name is that?”
“Scratch.”
“You want we should call you Scratch?” Annie inquired with a devilish grin.
“No, I want you to call me by a name no one else ever called me afore,” he declared as he reached up and stroked the child’s cheek with his callused fingertips. “Want each of you young’uns … to call me Grandpa.”
Amanda bent over and whispered something into the smallest boy’s ear. As she straightened, the youngster gazed at Bass with unerring and questioning eyes.
“Mama said to call you Gran’papa.”
Dropping to one knee, which caused the dogs to bounce over to sit beside him, Titus held out his hand and said, “That’s what I am—your grandpa.”
For a long moment the boy stared down at that big, scarred hand, then brought his tiny fingers up and Titus gently enfolded the hand in his. Finally the youngster retracted his arm and took a step backward against his mother’s skirt.
“He ain’t afraid of me, is he, Amanda?”
She wagged her head and said, “I don’t think he’s afraid of anything, Pa. Sometimes he scares me so, what he’ll do and where he’ll go if he takes a notion. No, he ought not be afraid of you.”
“You ain’t afraid of these here ugly dogs, are you, son?”
The boy glanced up at his mother, then back to the old trapper, when he finally shook his head, but just barely.
Bringing his eyes to bear on the boy, Titus said, “That’s good. Boys an’ dogs just go together natural. What’s your name, son?”
With the tiny tip of his pink tongue, the youngster licked his dry lips and said in a strong, unwavering voice, “Lucas, mister. But you can call me Luke, ’cause you’re my gran’-papa.”
“That what your mama calls you?”
He glanced up at his mother, then touched eyes with his grandfather again. “No, she calls me Lucas.”
With a chuckle, Titus declared, “Then, that’s what I’ll call you too—Lucas.”
The boy caught them all by surprise when he suddenly asked, “Why you got them wires hanging from your ears?”
That question took him from his blind side, but after a moment’s reflection Scratch answered, “I s’pose I wear my earbobs ’cause I like ’em, Lucas. I think these here shiny rocks an’ beads are purty. What you think?”
Tilting his head one way, then the other, the child seriously studied both copper ear wires strung with tiny pieces of azure-blue turquoise and blood-red glass beads, then peered into the old trapper’s eyes and announced, “I think they’re pretty too.”
“Thankee, Lucas” and he wanted to say more—
But the boy was already turning his head to look up at his mother and ask, “Mama, can I get some earbobs like Gran’papa’s got?”
Even though she clamped her hand over her mouth, there was no disguising the merry laughter in her eyes at her son’s innocent request. When she had finally gained her composure, Amanda quickly glanced at her father, then at her husband, and finally at the boy once more, saying, “I’m sure your grandpa didn’t get those earbobs put in his ears till he was much, much older than you are now, Lucas. You can wait.”
“That true, Gran’papa?”
With an impish grin, Titus replied, “Yes, Lucas—I was real ol’t afore I got my ears poked with a sharp awl an’ these here wires put in.”
His little face scrunched up with concern. “Did it hurt?”
“Something fierce, it hurt.”
Lucas deliberated on that for a moment, then said, “I’m not afraid of a fierce hurt, Gran’papa. But I’ll wait like my mama says I gotta wait—till I’m older.”
“That’s a good lad,” he said to his grandson.
“And maybe then I can even come help you out here in the mountains,” the boy continued to everyone’s surprise. “Mama told us you work making wagon tires and such. Maybe when I get older you can teach me an’ I’ll be your helper. I’m good at learning.”
“There’s plenty of time for l’arnin’, Lucas. A lot of l’arnin’ your hull life through. But I ’spect your pa here’s got a passel of things to teach you his own self,” he said, patting the child on the shoulder as he rose to his feet. Bringing his eyes to Amanda’s face as he stood once more, Scratch explained, “Like I was saying—we was getting worried ’bout your family makin’ it for dinner. Figgered I’d come see what was keeping you.”
“Hargrove,” Roman said with utter sourness. “Him and his trouble was keeping us.”
“But we can come now,” Amanda said. “I’m sure we’re all real hungry, aren’t we?”
Lucas craned back his head to stare up at his grandfather. “My mama got any brothers and sisters like I got brothers and sisters?”
Immediately Titus asked, “I’ll bet you’re a lad likes to ride on your pa’s shoulders?”
“Oh, yes—I do!”
“Here,” and Bass swept up the boy, swinging Lucas into the air and turning him just before he plopped the boy down on his shoulders. “There now. That’s where you’re gonna ride till we go fetch up our horses and you can ride mine back to the post.”
“You didn’t answer Luke’s question,” Leah stated as she hustled to walk alongside her grandfather.
“What question was that?”
“My mama got any brothers or sisters?”
“Yes, young lady. Your ma got two brothers an’ a sister.” Then he looked at Amanda and smiled. “An’ ’nother one gonna be here sometime deep in the winter.”
“How old are they?” Annie demanded to know.
“How old are you, girl?”
Annie said, “Gonna be eight in a few weeks, my pa tells me.”
“Well, now—the oldest after your mother, she’s thirteen winters now.”
“W-winters?” young Lemuel repeated.
“That’s how we count age out here, son,” he replied. “So she’s a li’l older’n you. An’ then there’s my oldest boy—he’s ten winters. But my youngest boy—for now—he’s only four summers old.”
“They’re really my mama’s brothers and sister?” Annie asked, a furrow between her eyes.
“Your mama was born a long, long time afore I come out here an’ … an’ got married to ’nother woman.”
From his shoulder-high perch, Lucas tapped his grandfather on the top of the head and asked, “Can your children play with me?”.
“I figger they’ll think it purely shines to play with you, Lucas.”
Reaching the horses, Titus hoisted the boy onto his saddle, then bent to untie the reins from the foreleg where he had ground-hobbled the animal.
He straightened and the horses lunged to their feet. Together, he and Shad led their horses, with the Burwell family scattered around them. Bass turned to Roman and asked, “How many of them hired men that Hargrove fella got along?”
“Seven. Eight now, if you count that pilot, Harris,” Burwell answered. “Why?”
After covering some distance on their walk back to the walls of Fort Bridger, Scratch finally admitted, “I was making my own tally of the sort of trouble there was in your camp now. The sort of trouble it sounds like most men don’t dare to bite off.”
Amanda looped her arm around her husband’s waist as they moved along. “I don’t want no more trouble in our lives, Roman. We’ve had enough already. So we’re gonna stay far away from trouble as we can now.”
“I think you’re right, ma’am,” Shad replied as he glanced over at Titus. “A smart man wouldn’t be stirring up trouble for himself.”
“Less’n trouble just drops right outta the sky an’ into that man’s lap,” Scratch remarked.
“You don’t figger it’s smart just to stay outta that wagon camp an
d not to bite off trouble on your own?” Sweete wagged his head with a wry grin. “Like Hargrove told us?”
“I was just askin’ how many guns Hargrove’s got working for him, s’all,” Titus replied. “It sours my milk, Shadrach—bullies like that wagon cap’n an’ his sort. I had my craw filled up to here with their kind. American Fur bully-boys an’ all the rest, strangled things for the li’l man.”
“There’s Hargrove, and eight others, like I said,” Burwell repeated.
“Why you wanna know, Scratch?” Shadrach asked.
“Only need to see what trouble I’m bitin’ into,” Titus explained, “so I can figger how long it’s gonna take for me to chew it up an’ spit it back out again.”
TWELVE
“Do you want us to go with you?” she asked him.
Titus looked at his wife. Last night, after they had returned to the post from having supper with Amanda’s family in the wagon camp, he thought he had had that question all figured out. But as the two of them stirred now in the predawn darkness, in their lodge pitched just outside the post walls, he knew he already had changed his mind.
“It will be a long journey,” he reminded.
“Not as far as it is from here to the land of my people,” she declared. “You still did not answer my question.”
For a moment he watched her as she laid more kindling on the feeble embers in the fire pit. “I thought you would stay here, for the children.”
“They go everywhere we go, Ti-tuzz.”
He heard the rustling of blankets. Looking over his shoulder, he found Magpie sitting up at the edge of the darkness. “You do your best not to make noise.”
She whispered, “I wanted to tell you something before you decided you were going alone.”
“I am not going alone,” he explained again in Crow. “Shadrach and his family are going with me.”
Magpie pushed some of her long hair out of one of her almond-shaped eyes. “We belong with you more than we belong here waiting for you at Bridger’s post.”
Scratch looked back at his wife again. “Much of that country will be new to me. Parts of it I’ve never been through.”
“Many summers ago, that was the country where you met Big Throat for the first time.” Waits-by-the-Water used the Crow’s name for Bridger as she leaned back and put some larger wood on the fire that began to cast a warm glow on the inside of the small lodge. “But I would not worry even if it was a completely strange land to you.”
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