“You boys give it a try for me?” Sinclair asked. “See what’s got this bunch so riled?”
Sinclair, Sweete, and a half-dozen others followed Scratch and Walker out the gate to find more than twenty warriors arrayed in a wide front some twenty yards from the fort wall. Every one of the horsemen had their weapons in view and their shields uncovered. That was a bad sign in any language.
Scratching at his memory to recall what he could of the Shoshone tongue, Bass called out, “Who leads this group?”
“I do,” a man called out as he urged his horse forward a few yards and came to a halt. Two others came up and stopped a yard behind him. “I am Rain.”
“The trader invites Rain and his warriors to trade,” Walker explained. “Two warriors can come in the wood lodge at a time—”
“I am not here to trade with Sinclair.”
“You know the trader?” Walker asked.
“Yes, I have come here often,” Rain replied. “My people always thought he was a good man.”
“No more?”
Rain shook his head. “Sinclair’s friend stole horses from us.”
Walker and Bass looked at one another, both bewildered. “Who is this friend stole your horses?”
“The one with the pointed chin,” Rain answered.
“What’s he saying?” Sinclair asked.
Bass shushed Sinclair as Walker continued. “This one with the pointed chin—you’re sure he stole horses from you?”
“Yes. He and others came to spend two nights with us,” Rain continued the amazing story. “They said they were on their way south to the white man post on the Sage River.* They were leading some horses they boasted they had stolen from the men at the Snake River fort.”
“How many horses did they steal from that fort?”
“At least three times the fingers on my one hand. And when they left our village to continue south, they took more than twice as many more horses from us!”
“This is not good,” Bass muttered to Walker, shaking his head.
Joe Walker asked the chief, “What do you want the trader Sinclair to do?”
“We want our horses back,” Rain declared firmly. “We came to take scalps—but we want the scalps of those who stole horses from us. They are white men with no honor: to steal from other white men, then steal from Indians they say are their friends. We honored them with our hospitality—fed them, let them sleep in our robes. What sort of man would steal from us after we treated him as one of our own?”
Bass thought a moment, then said, “Their scalps are not worth the trouble, Rain. Will you let us go after the thieves?”
Rain talked low to the warriors behind him, then asked, “You white men will go after the others and get our horses back?”
“We can try,” Titus said. “If we find them, we will bring the ponies to you.”
“And if you don’t,” Rain vowed, “my band will no longer be a friend to this place and all who camp here. My men will return to steal the horses from this place.”
Grimly, Joe Walker asked, “How long will you give us?”
Peering at the half-moon rising in the late-afternoon sky for a long moment, the war chief finally said, “Indian-talkers, you will have till the moon grows fat. Then we will be back to take the horses that graze in this meadow … along with the scalps of every man, woman, and child still here when we return.”
“Can’t understand how I figured Thompson wrong,” William Craig moaned at their fire that third night on their cold ride down the Green.
“Folks change,” Joe Walker said as he slid the blade of his knife round and round on the whetting stone.
Robert Newell asked, “You figure to use that knife on Thompson?”
“Maybe he should,” Titus Bass roared abruptly, surprising them all. “Man just up and turns his coat like Thompson and them others—maybe it’s up to folks like us to kill him.”
Walker gazed at Bass wordlessly, no need of language between men of like mind.
“You really fixing to kill them white men when we catch up to ’em?” Dick Owens asked.
“Maybeso we’ll see what happens when we get down there to take them horses back,” Bass said as he poked a twig into the fire.
“They’re just Injun horses,” William Craig said. “English horses too. It ain’t like they stole ’em from any friend of mine—”
“No friend of your’n?” Bass snarled. “Didn’t them English help out the three of you your first two seasons?”
“Y-yes—”
“What ’bout them Snakes?” Walker asked this time. “Didn’t they come in to trade with you and Thompson and Sinclair, when they could’ve come riding in and run off with all your stock?”
Craig regarded his Nez Perce wife a moment, then stared at the fire. “I s’pose I do owe the Snakes some decent—”
“Goddamned right,” Bass interrupted. “That’s what turned it for me. When Thompson and Peg-Leg stole horses from the English up at Fort Hall, I just figgered the English was a big outfit what could take care of itself. But when them white niggers rode into that Snake village and was treated so goddamned good by ’em, only to take off with some of their horses … then I knowed wrong was wrong.”
“No matter them niggers are white men,” Walker vowed. “Them horses is going back to the Snakes. If’n Thompson and the rest put up a fight … I’ll kill ’em the way I would any man what stole from my friends. That about the way you sack it, Scratch?”
“Stealing from no-good red niggers like Blackfoot is one thing,” Bass agreed. “But I never did cotton to stealing from folks who done me a good turn.”
“Maybeso anyone here who don’t figure this may come to gunplay better turn back in the morning a’fore we push on,” Walker said as he slid his knife back into its scabbard. “Ruther not have such a man along when I need to know who’s watching my back in a fight.”
“Comes down to it,” Meek said, “you can count on me and Doc.”
“Me and Dick too,” Carson said, angling a thumb at Owens.
“You’re in with Bass, ain’cha, Shad?” Walker asked.
Sweete smiled. “Me and Scratch see eye to eye on most things. I’d as soon hang a white turncoat’s scalp from my belt as a Blackfoot’s. ’Sides—Titus Bass hauled my hash outta the fire more’n once. I’ll stand at his back in ary fight he calls me to.”
The wind was up the next morning when they tried to restart their fires. Shards of icy snow skittered along the ground, gusting this way and that, scattering the ashes and embers. Finally the men saddled up and pushed on without coffee in their bellies.
Mile by mile they rode south-southwest, almost into the teeth of that storm racing off the horizon. But instead of snow, the lowering sky brought only a deepening cold. No man could claim he was warm punching against that brutal wind. Hour by hour they continued down that ages-old trail the Ute had used for centuries, a trail that was leading them toward the mouth of the Uintah River where three winters before Antoine Robidoux had raised his log stockade. It was there the Shoshone said they would find Thompson, Peg-Leg Smith, and the rest lying low with their stolen horses.
But none of them knew for certain what would happen when they finally found Thompson’s horse thieves.
That night, and again the following morning, they had to chip holes in the thick ice sealing the Green in order to water their weary horses. The men huddled sleepless around their fires, wrapped in blankets and robes, remembering high times, talking about the glory days that had been and would never be again.
And they talked about justice swift and sure. These men who were of a breed all their own had written their own code of honor across this raw and lawless land.
“Man don’t steal from those what treat him as a friend,” Bass explained to those grown cold and hungry and tired of the journey.
“I’d ruther gut me a red nigger than chase after white men what took a few horses from some Injuns,” Dick Owens grumbled, once more on the verge of turning back.
“Scratch is right,” Joe Walker agreed. “If’n we don’t do what’s right, then we might as well hand this land over to them what’ll turn everything bad on us. You better decide a’fore morning, Dick. I figger we’ll reach Fort Winty* by late morning tomorrow.”
“Dick’s gonna ride with us,” Carson said firmly, turning to his partner. “Ain’cha, Dick?”
Owens reluctantly nodded. “It don’t make a lick of sense for me to turn back now. Not alone, it don’t.”
“I don’t want you along if’n your heart ain’t in it, Owens,” Scratch threatened.
“It ain’t, and that’s the truth,” Owens admitted. “Them are white men. They stole’t horses from the English, stole’t horses from the Injuns. They didn’t steal no horses from me—”
“They might as well took horses from me, Dick,” Titus said. “I know Peg-Leg Smith. Got drunk with him a time or two my own self. But when he and the rest went thieving horses from them Snakes, from Injuns what always done their best to treat us good, that’s when Peg-Leg crossed the line.”
“But they’re white men,” Owens groused. “Same as you and me.”
“Makes it all the worse of ’em,” Titus argued. “I got me a choice, Dick. Either I go get them horses back for the Snakes and make it right by them … or them Snakes go do it for themselves.”
“What you figger them Snakes would do, Scratch?” Meek asked.
“Start killing white men,” he declared flatly. “Snakes been our friends for as long as I’ve knowed ’em, boys. So if you want our friends to start killing white men, then you go right on back: tuck your tail and turn back for home.”
“There ain’t no easy way at this,” Carson advised. “I’m mad as a spit-on hen that them boys stole horses … but I’m even madder at ’em for what might happen if we don’t get them horses back to the Snakes.”
“Amen to that, Kit,” Titus grumbled as he eyed the reluctant Dick Owens. “Amen to that.”
Late that next morning as he bellied down atop the sage-covered hill alongside Meek and Walker, Bass focused his long brass spyglass on the log-and-mud fort below them at that junction where the Uintah flowed into the Green. In that subfreezing silence, Scratch could hear the snuffle of their own horses tied behind them, just below the skyline.
He passed the glass to Walker. “Seems they might’n be expecting visitors. Look there at the island in the middle of the Green, just downriver.”
“I see ’em,” Walker said. “That’s where they’re herding the horses, Joe.” He handed the glass on to Meek.
They waited till the muscular trapper finished looking over the scene below; then Titus asked, “We go for the horses? Or … we go to raise hell with them horse thieves?”
For a long moment the wind breasted that hilltop before Joe Walker spoke. “I ain’t eager to spill a white man’s blood, Scratch. Since they got them horses on that island, I’m for slipping down there and stealing ’em back so none of us is forced to kill one of them thieving niggers.”
“I’ll go for that,” Meek responded. “Get them horses back without fighting them fellers.”
Walker turned to Bass. “What say you, Scratch?”
A gust of wind howled over the crest of that hill, then whimpered on its way. “I say a thief is a thief, no two ways to it. But … if we can get back them horses without a fight doing it your way, Joe—then I’ll be satisfied.”
“Glad we all agree,” Walker declared.
“Just mark my word, boys,” Bass snagged their attention again, “if one of them thieving niggers raises his gun at me, he’s damn well dead where he stands.”
* What the Shoshone called the Uintah River, in the extreme northeastern corner of present-day Utah, where Antoine Robidoux erected his small fur post near the Uintah’s junction with the Green
* Fort Uintah
32
For some reason a stretch of the Green down below them wasn’t frozen near as solid as the rest. Beneath a thin, riffled layer of icy scum Titus could make out the river’s sluggish current.
From the willows where he lay, Bass studied the far bank, listening for any sounds coming from the log stockade where three smoky spires rose slowly into the leaden sky. Off to his left lay the narrow grassy island where the thieves had corralled their horses. No more than a half dozen more grazed near the walls of Robidoux’s post.
He stared at the telltale color of that ice again. More times than he could count he had crossed frozen rivers, leading his horse and the mule. Times were Titus Bass had crossed the slurried Yellowstone itself bare-assed naked while a winter storm slammed down on that country. He damn well knew cold water as well as any man … likely because it scared the hell out of him like nothing else could.
The pale, translucent green of that ice indicated there had to be a spring feeding the river with a trickle of warm water, causing much of the ice around that spring to grow about as soft as a cotton bale left out on the St. Louis levee in a spring downpour.
Back when Joe Walker led the two dozen down from the hills into the river valley, Sweete was the first to spot the nearby smudge of smoke hanging in an oily pall beyond the bare ridges. That smoke was a good sign either of a band of trappers camping nearby, or a village choosing to spend out the winter close to this trading post erected by men who frequently used Taos as their supply base. As much smoke as there was, Scratch figured it had to be Indians. Carson volunteered to have a look for himself.
By the time Bass, Walker, and Joe Meek had bellied their way down from the hilltop after glassing the fort and horse island, Kit was riding in from that solitary foray to scout the village downriver.
“I say they’re Yutas,” Carson explained, handing his reins to Dick Owens and promptly kneeling on the hard ground.
Dragging a knife from its scabbard, Carson traced a line to represent the river, scratched a small square for the stockade across the Green, then gathered up a handful of stones he positioned to indicate where the Indians had erected their lodges.
“How many fighting men?” William Craig asked in worry.
“Sixty, maybe seventy,” Carson said, dragging the back of a hand beneath his red, runny nose. “Twenty-some lodges.”
Walker turned to Craig, asking, “Why you figger we oughtta worry ’bout them Yutas? They never caused me no trouble.”
The trader shrugged. “It’s clear some Injuns don’t want other Injuns trading for powder and guns—”
“You s’picious them Yutas don’t like the idea of you trading with the Shonies up at Davy Crockett?” demanded Meek.
“I dunno how that bunch down there will act when we go riding in there to take them horses from Robidoux,” Craig admitted.
“Yutas ain’t never hurt no man I know of,” Bass interrupted brusquely. “Less’n you shaved that bunch on some deal you ain’t told us about, trader—them Yutas won’t give our outfit no never mind. We only come for the horses them white men stole’t, so we ain’t got no truck with that village.”
“It’s plain as sun Thompson’s boys picked up more horses from somewhere,” Carson explained as he stabbed the point of his knife into the ground along that line representing the river. “There’s better’n fifty on that island now.”
“Ever’ last one of ’em will make a nice present for them Snakes,” Bass growled. “Less’n we get horses back for Rain, his warriors gonna do their damndest against ever’ white man in this country—guilty or not.”
Walker nodded. “No man here wants war with them Snakes. We got enough enemies awready.”
Meek kne
lt to lean over Carson’s shoulder, stabbing a finger at the shorter man’s drawing of the island. “A good thing Peg-Leg and the rest don’t have no guard on them ponies.”
“That’ll make it easy for us to get the horses started away,” Walker announced. “We won’t have to do no shooting at them boys.”
“You come up with a plan, Joe?” Newell asked.
Joseph R. Walker looked over the two dozen of them a moment before he explained. “Half of us gonna cross to the island and wrangle them horses across the ice toward the north bank. I want the other half of you to split off in two outfits. One go with Bass on the upriver end of the island and cross over just below the fort. The other’n go with Carson downriver of the island and make your crossing there. Both you boys’ll wait to show yourselves till we get onto the island and start the herd across the ice to shore.”
“Good,” Meek responded. “That way we’ll have them horses penned up a’tween the three outfits so they won’t go stampeding off if’n there’s shooting.”
Walker cleared his throat. The others got to their feet in an uneasy silence. Some coughed softly, others shuffled their moccasins in nervousness.
“Kit—you take your five men on downriver now,” Walker instructed, then waited while Carson turned, quickly and silently pointing to Dick Owens and four others. The six pushed from the group toward their horses tethered nearby.
“Take your men off too, Scratch.”
Bass peered over them, having already made his choices. Nodding to each man in turn, he picked Sweete, Meek, and Newell, along with two men he didn’t know well but who appeared to be weathered veterans of Indian scrapes. Leaving the remaining ten behind with Walker and William Craig, Titus released his horse from the brush and led it on foot toward the broad, shallow ravine that would take them down to the south bank of the Green.
He halted his outfit among the brush growing at the mouth of the ravine where they waited. Anxious to be atop the horse and moving, Scratch found this waiting hardest to endure. He checked the priming in the four pistols he had stuffed into his belt, then flipped back the frizzen to see the rifle’s pan was primed.
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