“We should go before it gets any later,” Strikes-in-Camp reminded him.
Bass realized he had been staring at the litter of their camp, the scattering of torn robes, canvas, and blankets. “Yes,” he answered quietly. “Those bushes—see if there is anything they left behind, anything we can use.”
The Crow turned without a reply, moving quickly to the timber, peering into the brush. Bass knelt at the fire pit, poking at that bundle of hickory ramrod cinders. They would be hardest to replace. He kept spare flints in his pouch. Some extra balls and three spare horns of powder in what he had packed on Samantha. But he didn’t have any spare wiping sticks should he break the one carried in the thimbles beneath the barrel of his rifle.
That was one thing a man couldn’t do without in these mountains. The bastards had burned them, either knowing full well what they were, or the Blackfoot had pitched the bundle into the fire just to destroy what they didn’t care to pack along—
He turned at the strange sound, finding Strikes-in-Camp, staring into the warrior’s eyes … as if Titus believed the Crow had just made that muted, out-of-place noise. More of a whimper. Perhaps the warrior had been suddenly struck by the prospect of his own horrible death—
There it was again. But the whimper did not come from Strikes-in-Camp.
With his heart rising in his throat, Bass scrambled to his feet and sprinted to the rubble of blankets and robes scattered back among the brush across the camp from where he and the Crow had been talking. When Titus heard the next faint, muffled sob, he went to his knees, as if his own legs had been knocked out from under him. To left and right he tossed the scraps of wool blanket, the ruin of the buffalo robes, flinging them over his shoulders until he heard that unmistakable sound again. Clearer still.
Yanking the last scrap of robe back, Titus stared down at the tiny body.
Flea lay on his side, curled up, sucking on the knuckles of one hand, blinking at the cold, gray light as his father bent over him.
Bass started to weep as he gently stuffed his hands beneath his son’s small shoulders and hips, pulling the boy against his breast. A few feet from the white man’s elbow, Strikes-in-Camp knelt, on his face written the sadness that he could not reach out to touch his little nephew.
“Now we know they have only two,” Bass croaked his wife’s tongue, swallowing hard at the knot in his throat.
The Crow stood when the white man got to his feet. “What will we do with your son now?”
“We’ll take him with us.”
“No,” the warrior said firmly. “I am a father, like you. We cannot take a young child when we leave to trail the Blackfoot.”
“Then you must take him back to your village,” Bass demanded.
“I am going with you,” the Crow argued. “There are Blackfoot to kill, scalps to lift—because I am going to die soon. I have vowed to take many of the enemy with me when I depart for the other side.”
“Then the boy must go with us.”
“You cannot take him,” he protested. “A young child does not belong when you are going on a war trail—”
“Neither of us are going back to the village,” Bass interrupted. “We are going after the Blackfoot. Flea will go with me.”
“Think of what you are doing. Let me go alone, and you can come along after you have taken him to the village. Bring the rest of the warriors Stiff Arm went to fetch.”
“Flea is going with me, and we are going now,” Bass turned, cradling the boy, searching the ground, kicking at the scraps of blanket and robe, hoping to find the remains of the cradleboard.
Strikes-in-Camp darted in front of the white man, stopping a dozen feet in front of him, throwing up his arms to get Titus to stop. “The child will catch the sickness. If not from me, your son will catch the sickness from the Blackfoot we are chasing.”
Looking down at his son’s face, Scratch said, “Maybe he will not die because he has some of my blood in him.”
The warrior asked, “Are you willing to risk that?”
For a long moment Bass stared down at the boy’s face. “It’s the best I can do, Strikes-in-Camp. If I go back to make him safe, then I won’t be able to help the other two.”
“Are you willing to risk the life of your son to get the others?”
“I think that is what my heart feels,” he admitted. “If Flea loses his mother, his sister too … then I don’t think he would want to go on living either.” Bass took a deep breath. “I know I will not want to go on if we cannot save the woman, the girl.”
“Then you have decided,” the warrior declared flatly, a look of determination written across his face. “A father, a husband, has made his choice for his family. As it should be.”
“Yes,” he said, looking up from the child’s face to gaze into the Crow’s eyes. “I will bring all my family back … or I will die with them.”
He tied the last knot in the rawhide strings that bound the scraps of blanket around the boy’s body. After swaddling Flea with some small pieces of the buffalo robe, Bass had encased the child in a large scrap of blanket, then wrapped loops of rawhide around and around the makeshift cradle. From those strips of rawhide, he hung two loops. Now he stood with the bundle in his arms and carried the infant over to his horse where he dropped the loops around the large round pommel on his Santa Fe saddle.
Only the child’s face remained uncovered. Scratch bent, kissed the boy on the cheek, then tugged the folds of blanket over the tiny copper face to protect it from the cold and the wind.
“My dog,” he said to the Crow, turning from the horse—remembering. “You see any sign of him?”
The warrior hunched over some bushes, his arms stuffed into the brush, pulling branches aside. “No blood. No body. The dog is not here … but this is.”
He watched Strikes-in-Camp pull a trade gun from the vegetation.
“Is this yours?” the Indian asked, holding it out between them.
Bass took the weapon, examined it, and said, “Yes. I left several weapons with her. They were loaded.”
“My sister must have thrown it here.”
“Why didn’t she use them?”
The warrior bent over another clump of brush, fishing with an arm. “I can only think that Waits-by-the-Water believed she could not shoot the firearms without endangering her children. So she threw them away as the warriors rode into your camp—so the Blackfoot wouldn’t have the weapons, and protecting the little ones from the enemy.”
Strikes-in-Camp straightened again, this time holding one of the big horse pistols.
“There’s bound to be more,” Bass said, laying the trade gun and pistol on a piece of the torn blanket. “Search—search it all. Maybe the war party didn’t steal any of the weapons before they ran away.”
Standing at some more bushes, the warrior asked, “Do you think we scared them away before they could search more carefully?”
“No,” and Bass wagged his head. “If they had someone watching, they would have seen there were only two of us. I don’t think we would have scared off so many. They would have waited for us.”
“Why did they go so quickly—before they found all the firearms, before they discovered the little boy?”
Scratch looked at Flea, wagging his head as he said, “Only thing I know is that finding my son and these weapons are a good sign the First Maker is ready to give me this one shot at getting my family back.”
26
He prayed it would stay cold, so cold it dared not snow.
Much more often here in the Northern Rockies than anywhere else in the central or southern mountains it grew too cold to snow. His prayer was far more than merely wishing against any snow that might fill in and hide the hoofprints left by the Blackfoot war party. Instead, Bass realized the deep temperatures would keep the tracks from melting during the day, then refreezing at night. What that sort of thing did to the top layer of snow could be cruel torture to their horses’ legs. Much better that it stayed so cold it didn
’t snow.
After stuffing the trade gun and that English fusil under the rawhide whangs on Samantha’s packs, strapping the extra pistols across the mule’s withers, Titus and Strikes-in-Camp began their chase. Crossing the frozen river, the Blackfoot trail headed straight across the lowlands for the better part of that afternoon—a trail that put both the pursued and the pursuers right out in the open under a hard, gray sky.
There was no way for the two of them to hide right out in the open, the direction the trail took. If the Blackfoot had chanced to leave a scout to watch over their backtrail, he would have spotted the two men coming behind. Nowhere to hide. But if the bastards did leave someone behind to watch for any pursuers, Scratch figured the Blackfoot would just scoff at two lonely riders trailing after them. They wouldn’t feel enough of a threat to lay any ambush.
But that didn’t mean the two of them could relax. It just didn’t pay not being wary when the trail they were following eventually headed off to the northwest, striking for the foothills. By sundown it was plain to see that the Blackfoot were intending to drive up the heights, crossing the high country to reach the Yellowstone on the far side. From there they would push on with their prisoners and plunder until they reached their homeland. They had killed some Crow warriors. And they had stolen some traps from a white man. Worst of all, the thieves had torn Bass’s life apart. They had his wife and daughter.
That first night they found some tall willow and cedar growing at the mouth of a coulee they could use for a windbreak. Unsaddling the animals, both men tore sage from the frozen ground, shook off the icy snow, then used the brush to rub down the beasts, doing their best to dry the horses before their sweat froze with the terrible cold as night deepened and the temperatures plummeted. That done, they laid scraps of the torn blankets over their three animals, then settled back in a copse of gnarled, fragrant cedar to wait out the morning.
“Sit here,” Titus whispered to Strikes-in-Camp. “Bring your robe to share with us.”
“Th-the boy?”
Scratch looked down at Flea. Then said, “Come, we will share our warmth with him.”
Together they spread one robe across the ground in the middle of their cedar shelter, then sat with the bundled infant between them before pulling a large blanket and the bigger of the two robes over their heads to make a tiny tent. Even though some of the bitter cold still wicked up through the robe from the frozen snow, the two of them were able to keep themselves and the infant warm enough that they didn’t shudder much.
Whether from the cold, or from his hunger, Flea began to fuss later just as Titus felt himself dozing off.
In that growing warmth of their shelter, Bass blindly felt for the knots binding the infant in his blanket cocoon. One by one he untied them, then pulled the bundled child into his lap. From a pouch he had dragged into the shelter with him, Scratch pulled some dried meat he had taken on his ride to the Crow village. The first small piece he broke off and held in his fingers while his other hand felt around to locate Flea’s tiny paw in the dark. Once he found it, Scratch shoved the strip of half-dried elk loin between the pudgy fingers and slowly brought the hand to the child’s mouth.
That quickly stifled Flea’s hungry sobs as the boy began to suck and gnaw on the meat.
For the longest time their breathing, the boy’s slurping on the jerked meat, and the mournful keen of the wind outside were the only sounds in that dark little world of their making.
“Should one of us stay awake?” the Crow asked.
“You sleep first,” Bass suggested, considering that some of the Blackfoot might have seen them and would creep back to ambush them. “Then you can listen while I sleep.”
“I will be quiet, so you can hear.”
It wasn’t long before he heard the warrior’s low, rhythmic snores. Later he realized he could no longer hear the boy gnawing on his supper. Time dragged as he struggled to stay awake in that tiny shelter. Every now and then Flea awoke, fussing—which stirred the Crow. But Titus always had some jerked meat to soothe his son. But one time the child kept whimpering—not satisfied with the strip of elk. In frustration Scratch reached down with his bare right hand, poking it out under a flap of their buffalo robe where he scraped some snow into his palm. Laying it against the boy’s chin, he felt Flea licking at the melting snow, his tongue eagerly lapping across Bass’s wet flesh. Twice more he brought some snow to the child’s mouth, until Flea wanted no more.
To keep himself awake through those long hours Bass concentrated on things, working them over the way he might examine a piece of streambank for beaver sign, searching for the right spot to make his set. Matters that might keep him alert—thinking on people and places and memories in the forty-four years of his life. Struggling to conjure up the faces of the old friends who had come and gone so long ago, the feel of those women, so many women, their shapes and smells, tastes and textures, so dim now because Waits-by-the-Water had come to dull any remembrance he had of others, the white and mulatto and red alike. It had been so many years since he had picked at these memories.
Likely Amy had herself some grandchildren by now, being a little older than he was at the time she had been determined to set her hooks in him. And Abigail might well be dead by now, murdered or dead of a pox—no way could he figure the life of a riverfront whore was a safe pillow for her nights. Then there was Marissa: another one likely to hook herself a husband …
And that set him to thinking of Amanda, the daughter left back in St. Louis. One day he’d have to consider packing up his wife and children, pointing their noses east to see the settlements—
But first a man had to get his family back, he scolded himself.
Amanda. Likely married herself in these last … four winters now. He might be a grandfather a few times over by now, with young’uns as small as Flea.
Bass clutched the boy to him, feeling the child murmur there in the warmth beneath his father’s coat—where Titus could feel the youngster against his heart.
I’ll find her for you, son. I’ll bring her back.
Twice he had cracked open his side of the buffalo robe, stuffed his fingers along the edge of the blanket, and peered out at the night sky, hoping to find some of the cold inkiness dissipating from the heavens. Finally a third time, hours later, Bass discovered the clouds had drifted on to the east, leaving the sky cold and clear. In the distance he could hear the cottonwoods booming, the smaller lodgepole popping as the temperatures plummeted.
But overhead, a little to the west over the rolling basin, he located the seven sisters whirling toward the horizon. More than half the night already gone.
“Strikes,” he whispered, then repeated it louder.
“You want me to listen now while you sleep?”
“Yes.”
The warrior began to stir. “I must wet the bushes first.”
“If you hold it in—it will help keep you awake,” Bass advised.
Strikes-in-Camp snorted. “If I hold it in, you and the boy will be wet before the sun rises.”
“Go. Wet the bushes.”
He listened as the warrior rustled out his side of the blanket and robe, scooting away to stand on the snow with a crunch, then heard the hiss of the hot urine splatter the frozen bushes nearby. The steaming liquid would likely freeze before it had melted all the way through to the hard ground.
Then the robe and blanket were pulled back, a gust of cold air accompanying the return of the shivering Indian.
“You should not worry: I won’t sleep now,” the Crow claimed. “How do you expect me to sleep when my manhood has icicles hanging from it?”
Bass chuckled softly. “Wake me before the first touch of light in the eastern sky.”
The wind had died by the time Strikes-in-Camp awoke him. The child was fussing, squirmy.
Pulling back the robe from his head and shoulders, Bass scooped a little snow into his bare hand and let the boy lick at it before handing him another piece of the dried meat to suck
on. At first the child whimpered, not wanting to take the jerky, but eventually the boy snatched at it, his belly realizing the elk was better than hunger.
“Get me another scrap of the blanket for the child,” Scratch asked. twist in the rocky path ahead where the enemy could lie in wait—
“Zeke!” he cried.
His voice was louder than he would have wanted, but those sodden clouds hovering just overhead absorbed the sound before it carried up the trail as the gray-white ghost of a dog limped from the tangle of wind-gnarled cedar, then collapsed onto his belly, whimpering.
“C’mere, boy!” he called as he vaulted out of the saddle and passed the reins over to the warrior.
Hitching itself onto its hindquarters first, the dog struggled to rise onto its forelegs. He shambled toward his master three steps, whining—then settled to the snow, attempting to crawl as he flailed against the ground with his front legs. As Bass loped ungainly across the slippery snow and talus, the dog’s head rolled to the side, tongue lolling from his muzzle.
He went to his knees beside the animal, noticing the long smear of blood marking the dirty snow from the tangle of cedar to where Zeke lay, his chest heaving.
“Awww, boy—” Titus gasped the instant he spotted the broken shaft embedded in the front of the dog’s neck, low enough that the arrow point would have penetrated the chest too.
Surrounding the base of the splintered shaft, blood had darkened, drying and freezing in a stiffened mass of clot and ice wider than two of Bass’s outspread hands.
Already the dog’s eyes were glazing, half-lidded. Strikes-in-Camp trudged up to stop behind Titus, dragging the two animals behind him. Their hooves softly clattered on the loose shale caked with the wind-scoured ice.
“He followed them,” the Indian said quietly.
Bass only nodded. He cradled Zeke’s head across a knee, rubbing that spot between the scarred ears.
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