Wind Walker (58 page)

That Indian was a proud man, one who had made plenty of mistakes, owned up to his faults, yet was still paying for what lay in the long-ago past. It didn’t seem fair to Titus Bass, since he’d made a heap of mistakes in his own life.

Still, he damn well understood just how few things in his own life had turned out anywhere near fair. Scratch could admire the warrior’s dogged persistence, as well as his survival savvy. And he got to thinking that perhaps there was a reason why he had run onto Slays in the Night after all these years, now that they were both no longer young and frisky as bull calves in spring … now that they had rubbed their old horns down to a polish and they no longer frolicked, the sap of youth no longer coursing through their veins. Considering the odds that once stood against the Shoshone warrior, it was nothing less than a wonder that Slays in the Night was still alive at all.
The Injun had the ha’r of the b’ar in’im, for sartin.

Even in her youth, that Digger woman could never have been a comely gal, Titus thought the more he looked her over that evening at supper. She didn’t talk much either, mostly keeping her eyes lowered except when she stole furtive glances at Waits-by-the-Water or one of the children. Red Paint Rock had to be half again as old as Waits. She was built sturdy and close to the ground, but it was the pear shape to
her body that made the woman seem all the more squat—especially when she stood next to the tall Shoshone.

“This is really the old friend who stole our horses long ago?” Waits whispered at his ear when he called her to the lodge after everyone had eaten supper and wiped their greasy hands on their hair.

“Yes,” he responded in a hush. “The man’s medicine has seen better days.”

“Our horses, our things are safe from him now?”

Laying his hands on her shoulders, Titus reassured, “That was a long time ago, far away, a wrong committed by another man.”

“You can be sure of him?”

“I want you to believe in me when I say I can.”

She looked into his eyes. “Then I will trust you, even though I do not know if I can trust him.”

“You can trust me.” He turned to kneel at the stack of blankets.

She stepped up behind his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“I am making gifts to them,” he explained, feeling her eyes on his back as he pulled out a red blanket, and a multi-striped one too. Sensing her waiting there behind him made him a little edgy, feeling as if he had to explain this act of charity when she herself was the most giving person he himself had ever known.

He turned slightly on his knees and asked, “Them extra guns—where’d you lay ’em?”

“You’re going to make a gift of a gun?” she asked, surprised enough that her voice rose an octave.

“Yes. He has nothing but a poor gun that is only good to shoot a few poor rabbits.”

“There, back where you sleep. I laid them under that green blanket.”

“The extra lead and powder we got for my work at Bridger’s fort?”

She pointed. “In the basket—there.”

Scratch crabbed toward the back of the lodge on all fours,
pulled back the blanket, and started appraising all the extra firearms he owned, most of them taken from the bodies of dead enemies over the years. He picked out a rifled flintlock, then selected a pistol that could use the same size ball.

“What does she have to cook in?” Waits asked.

Her sudden question startled him. Scratch turned and peered over his shoulder at her with a shrug. “How’d I know what she’s got to cook in? Didn’t pay no attention. Only saw her skinnin’ a pair of poor-lookin’ rabbits—”

“Isn’t that just like a man.” She let her words whip him even while she grinned. “This woman needs something too, but all you can mink about is your gifts to the man.”

He smiled back at her. “What you got in mind for Red Paint Rock?”

“I have a kettle she can have,” Waits began as she crouched on the robes and went to digging through her belongings. “And a new knife too.”

He stood, scooping up the rifle and pistol, then started for the door—stopping to lean over and plant a kiss on the top of her head as she dug out a few yards of some cloth and several feet of red ribbon. When he had ducked out of the lodge, Scratch called for his children.

“Flea, take your sister and little brother into the lodge to help your mother,” he directed. “I want you to bring me the two blankets your mother will show you. And help your mother bring out all that she is gathering up too.”

It wasn’t long before Flea and Magpie carried the heavy wool blankets out and laid them on a shady patch of grass so Titus could prop the rifle against the stack and lay the pistol on top of it all. He went back to the lodge to pick out some powder and lead while the children helped their mother bring out the rest of her gifts. Through it all, Slays in the Night and Red Paint Rock watched with growing interest and curiosity as the white man’s family bustled back and forth to the lodge and the dogs whimpered to be let off their ropes.

At last, Scratch settled again at the fire, where the antelope haunch roasted. He pointed at the spit, then signed, “How long has it been since you ate antelope?”

Self-consciously, the warrior said, “A long time. They move too fast for my … for my old gun.”

“You and the woman are lucky that old gun of yours can keep you both fed.”

“We get a little to eat. Enough for her and me,” the Shoshone replied. Then, pointing at the rifle leaning against that stack of blankets, Slays said, “I like the looks of your gun. Such a gun shoots straight, kills a lot of game.”

“That ain’t my gun over there,” Titus corrected. “Used to be.”

The Shoshone looked at him quizzically until Scratch explained, “It’s your gun now.”

“M-my gun?” he signed, tapping his breast with a trembling hand.

He stood up again, reaching down to pull the warrior’s arm. “C’mon. Let’s go see how your new rifle feels in your hands.”

As he stepped away from the fire with the white man, Slays said something to the Digger woman. Her eyes grew wide, bouncing back and forth between the rifle, the old trapper, and Bass’s family, who stood nearby, watching their guests. After a moment of stunned silence, Red Paint Rock quietly said something to her husband.

The Shoshone stopped just feet short of the blankets and rifle. “Friend,” he said in his language, beginning to sign again, “we do not have anything of value to repay you for this kindness.”

That poverty tugged at his heart. “There’s no need to give anything back to us for the gifts we make to you and your wife.”

“G-gifts?” he asked. “M-more than the rifle?”

“Lookee there,” and he pointed at the stack, “first whack, you both likely could use a couple new blankets. Them come right out of Jim Bridger’s storehouse a few days back. Brand spankin’ new they are. An’ you’re gonna need some powder an’ lead to shoot your new rifle—so I give you some of that.”

Slays’s lips moved slightly, but no words slipped out.

“Here, lookee,” Bass said as he picked up the small skin
pouch from the top of the blankets. “Inside is a worm”—which he brought forth and held up for the Shoshone to see—“so you can pull a patch from your barrel. An’ … this here’s a screw—good to yank a dry ball from your breech.” He saw the mortified look on the man’s face. “Don’t you worry none. I’ll teach you how to use ’em afore we push on north in a couple of days. Show you how to give your barrel a good cleanin’ with some boil’t water too.”

“Clean, this gun?” signed the Shoshone.

“You don’t clean that barrel?”

He shook his head.

Laying a hand on the Indian’s shoulder, he said, “Got some presents for your woman too. We’ll give ’em to her while you go back an’ fetch that gun of your’n.”

“Get gun?”

“Yepper—go get your old gun for me to look at.”

By the time he came trudging back with that well-worn smoothbore trade gun, Slays in the Night found his wife crying uncontrollably as she sat on the grass, surrounded by those two new blankets, the gift of a new brass kettle, along with a small iron skillet and ladle too. In addition, Magpie, Flea, and even Jackrabbit were handed small gifts by their mother to present to Red Paint Rock. A few yards of coarse cloth, some blanket strouding and shiny ribbon, along with a little brass wire, a handful of brass tacks, and a few nails too. But what made her lose control was the earbobs Waits put through the holes in her earlobes: wires from which were suspended small pewter turtles. Slays found the woman rocking back and forth on the ground, blubbering like a baby from her joy.

The Shoshone halted a few yards away, struck dumb himself for a moment before he could sign: “She never had someone give her anything pretty. Now so many pretty things.”

“Maybeso, we all know what it’s like not to have somethin’ what makes us truly happy,” Titus said gently. “I’m truly proud we made you both happy with our gifts.”

Tearing his eyes away from his wife, Slays looked at Titus. “W-why do you give us all of this?”

“When I look around at my family, an’ where I’m livin’ out my days, I see how much I have—the good things I been given.” He tried to explain that intangible warmth residing in his heart. “I got a lot more’n I ever deserved, friend. More’n I can ever use, so there ain’t no use in keepin’ it to my own self. I figger I should share with other folks all the good what’s been give to me.”

For years now Scratch had struggled to sort out why he had ever deserved a woman anywhere as special as Waits-by-the-Water, or the children who brought him such joy and made his heart swell with pride. After the oft-misspent life he had led to reach this day, after the mistakes he had made and the people he had hurt along the way … exactly why he was so richly blessed remained an unsolvable mystery to him.

Swallowing hard, Slays began to sign, his hands trembling. “This is so difficult to ask, the words to find … but why do you and your family do this for a man who stole horses from you many years ago?”

“That was a long, long time in the past,” he explained. “Ain’t ever been one to carry a grudge. I just figger you was a differ’nt fella back then. The two of you need help now. Me an’ my family can help you ’cause we got more’n we can ever use. Ain’t no sense in holdin’ on to any of it when we could pass it on to some folks who’ll get a real good use out of it.”

“I can’t remember when I ever felt this rich!” he signed as he spoke Shoshone. Then he asked, “How do I ever repay you, friend?”

Titus smiled at that. “You called me friend.”

“Yes, because that’s what we are?” Slays asked. “Even when I stole your horses, you did not kill me because you were still my friend. So you need to tell me, how can I repay you?”

He thought for a moment, his eyes looking at the pleasure
it gave his wife and children to see such joy on the face of the Digger woman, a happiness that came from helping those who had little of their own but their lives, the poor clothes on their backs, and a few old weapons. Scratch sensed that this moment beside the hot springs with these two people might just mark the start of some healing for his injured soul, battered and wounded by deep loss. He knew his healing had begun this day.

So it was he looked at the tall Shoshone, the man grown as old and wrinkled as he, then said, “The way you repay is you help the next person you can, same as you been helped along your own self.”

“My horse smells his own kind,” Flea announced days later when his father brought his animal to a halt beside the boy.

Scratch looked at the claybank’s eye, finding that it seemed to be studying him. Then he peered at his son. “You know this from the way he is acting?”

“He told me, Popo.”

Bass took a moment to peer back over his shoulder, into the broad valley where he signaled Waits-by-the-Water to hold up with the other children and their pack animals. “Where are these other horses he smells?”

“Beyond the ridge.”

Drawing in a deep breath, he said, “That’s a long way for your pony to smell his own kind, Flea. Especially when the air is so heavy with the coming storm.”

“I believe him and what he told me,” Flea asserted. “But do you believe me?”

After a moment’s pause, Titus responded, “I believe you, son.” He took the big-brimmed hat from his head and waved the signal to Waits. She raised her rifle high, a black silk bandanna fluttering where it was knotted around the muzzle, to show she understood she was to remain where she was near the trees. “Let’s go find these horses you’ve found.”

From the morning they had put the hot springs at their back and continued north into the land of the Crow, they had
not come upon any recent sign of the Mountain or River bands. A week ago they had put the Yellowstone River behind them and pressed on for the valley of the Judith, finally encountering fresher horse trails and even the remains of a recent campsite. But still no dust on the horizon or columns of smoke curling wispily into the chill autumn sky. The farther they rode in search of buffalo, the closer they drew to Blackfoot country, and the greater the odds the Crow village would invite an attack from those inveterate enemies. For days he had been as wary as a bull elk during the high-country rut, sleeping little at night, thinking how good it would have been to have another man and his guns along—Josiah Paddock, Shadrach Sweete, even Slays in the Night.

But one of them had become a storekeeper in old Taos; by now another had likely reached the new territory of Oregon leading a train of emigrant dreamers; and the Shoshone protested that he was as close to Blackfoot country as he ever wanted to be. Slays said he and his woman might start south toward Bridger’s post; then again, he might just remain right there near the hot springs for the winter. Cold as the rest of that country could become, the narrow valley stayed a bit warmer, most hospitable to man and beast alike.

Each time he brooded how having another gun along would have made him ride a mite easier in the saddle, Titus remembered how unflinchingly Waits, Magpie, and Flea all took up weapons at that final eye-to-eye with Phineas Hargrove. So he had decided they would push north another two days in search of the hunting bands. If they hadn’t found Yellow Belly’s bunch, then he’d turn south by east, striking off toward Fort Alexander. Chances were trader Robert Meldrum would know where both the River and the Mountain bands were using up the last of these precious autumn days in making meat for the winter. After all, Meldrum’s American Fur Company had a vested interest in every one of those shaggy hides the warriors managed to get, after the women had skinned the beasts and dressed the hides into soft sleeping robes suitable for the market downriver in St. Louis and beyond.