Wind Walker
Authors: Terry C. Johnston
T
ERRY
C. J
OHNSTON
WIND WALKER
“One of the most evocative and powerful books in the series.” —
Publishers Weekly
“What makes these novels so rich and fascinating is the genuine flavor of the period and the men who made it what it was.” —
Tulsa World
RIDE THE MOON DOWN
“Bass is a near-mythic Davy Crockett-like character, but author Johnston imbues him with Everyman emotions. … Readers of past Bass adventures will not be disappointed.”
—
Booklist
DANCE ON THE MOON
“A good book … not only gives readers a wonderful story, but also provides vivid slices of history that surround the colorful characters.”
—Dee Brown, author of
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
“Packed with people, action, and emotion … makes you wish it would never end.”
—Clive Cussler
BUFFALO PALACE
“Rich in historical lore and dramatic description, this is a first-rate addition to a solid series, a rousing tale of one man’s search for independence in the unspoiled beauty of the old West.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“Terry C. Johnston has redefined the concept of the western hero. … The author’s attention to detail and authenticity, coupled with his ability to spin a darned good yarn, makes it easy to see why Johnston is today’s bestselling frontier novelist. He’s one of a handful that truly know the territory.”
—
Chicago Tribune
CRACK IN THE SKY
“No one does it better than Terry Johnston. He has emerged as one of the great frontier historical novelists of our generation.”
—
Tulsa World
“Mastery of the mountain man culture in all its ramifications, a sure grasp of the historical context, and the imagination of a first-rate novelist combine to make
Crack in the Sky
a compelling, fast-paced story firmly anchored in sound history.”
—Robert M. Utley, former chief historian for the National Park Service and author of
A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific
CARRY THE WIND, BORDERLORDS,
and
ONE-EYED DREAM
“Johnston’s books are action-packed … a remarkably fine blend of arduous historical research and proficient use of language … lively, lusty, fascinating.”
—
Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph
“Rich and fascinating … There is a genuine flavor of the period and of the men who made it what it was.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
Cry of the Hawk
Winter Rain
Dream Catcher
Carry the Wind
Borderlords
One-Eyed Dream
Dance on the Wind
Buffalo Palace
Crack in the Sky
Ride the Moon Down
Death Rattle
S
ONS
OF
THE
P
LAINS
N
OVELS
Long Winter Gone
Seize the Sky
Whisper of the Wolf
T
HE
P
LAINSMEN
N
OVELS
Sioux Dawn
Red Cloud’s Revenge
The Stalkers
Black Sun
Devil’s Backbone
Shadow Riders
Dying Thunder
Blood Song
Reap the Whirlwind
Trumpet on the Land
A Cold Day in Hell
Wolf Mountain Moon
Ashes of Heaven
Cries from the Earth
Lay the Mountains Low
For all that his steadfast friendship has meant to me and my writing career across many, many seasons—from the Rocky Mountain front to the grand Pacific Coast—it is with honor that I dedicate this final novel in the saga of Titus Bass to my old and dear friend of Colorado’s Front Range, the one who has been braiding the rope others will one day strive to climb
,
Kent Havermann
a man who would do to ride the river with, a friend who would stand at my back against Blackfoot …
A man Titus Bass himself is proud to call his friend!
The old man sang his death song then;
His voice rang clear and high;
“O Sun, thou endureth forever,
But we who are warriors must die!”
—STANLEY VESTAL
Fandango, Ballads of the Old West
ONE
“Strangers?”
Without looking at his young son, Titus Bass nodded and eventually whispered, “Yes, Flea. In this country, you must consider everyone a stranger.”
His own words stabbed into the frozen air, hung frostily for but a heartbeat, then were ripped away by a sharp, sudden gust that stirred up skiffs of the dry, two-day-old snow around them, where they lay on a ledge of bare rock.
“Get me the far-seeing glass,” the fifty-three-year-old trapper said, never tearing his eyes off the distant objects plodding like black-backed sow beetles across the everywhere-white ablaze beneath the brilliant winter sun in a far-reaching sky.
Without making a sound in reply, the boy of ten winters scooted backward into the stunted cedar, where he rose in a crouch and quietly padded away, the soft crunch of his thick winter moccasins fading in the utter, aching silence that made itself known each time the winter wind died here on the brow of the low ridge. It wasn’t long before Titus heard his son returning. Flea went to his knees, then plopped onto his belly to cover those last few yards, crawling right up beside his father, their elbows brushing.
“You are a good son,” he whispered to his oldest boy in
the child’s strongest language, Crow—the tongue of Flea’s mother.
Brushing some of his long, gray hair out of his face, Titus again vowed that he should teach his children more, much more, of his own American tongue in the months and years to come. Down in the marrow of him he was growing more certain with time that they would need that American tongue before they became adults. His children would grow into maturity and give birth to children of their own in a world that Bass knew nothing of. A world very much unlike the world he had grown up in at the edge of the frontier, back there in Kentucky—essentially the same world his own father had grown up in, and to a great extent the very same life his grandfather had known before them. Right in the same place, on the same land both father and grandfather had tilled, sweated into, and prayed over. But … Magpie, Flea, and little Jackrabbit would soon enough confront a world their father knew nothing of.
He smiled as Flea held out the long, brass spyglass to him. “You are a good lad,” he said, this time in American, slowly too, pulling out the three sections to the spyglass’s full length.
“Lad.” Flea tried the word out, then paused slightly as he strung more words together, “I—am—a—good—lad.”
“You’re about the best lad ever could be,” Titus confirmed, again in American, then patted his son on the shoulder.
Poking his trigger finger through the small slot cut in his thick buffalo-hair mittens so he could fire his rifle with those mittens on, Bass swiveled the tiny brass protective plate away from the eyepiece and brought the spyglass to his one good eye. Blinked several times. Then peered through the long instrument as he slowly scanned the far ground below them until the image of the riders flashed across his view. Back he brought the spyglass, then slowly, slowly twisted the last of the three sections to bring the figures into better focus.
“Here, Flea—have a look for your own self,” he said as he handed the boy the spyglass. When his son had it against one
eye, Bass spoke in Crow. “Turn it slow, like this, to see the riders come up close in your eye.”
The man rubbed the long, pale scar that angled downward from the outside corner of his left eye while he waited for the boy to scan the ground ahead with that strange, foreign instrument. He had worn that scar for some fifteen winters now, cut there in a last, desperate fight he had with an old friend whose right hand had been replaced with a crude iron hook.
As the youth panned across the landscape, Flea jerked to a halt and held the spyglass steady, breathless too.