Dance on the Wind (11 page)

“I don’t need no more time to beat you,” Titus replied, jabbing the stopper back in his priming horn. He snapped the frizzen over the powder in the pan.

“That’s odd, young’un,” the tall man said with a sigh as he brought his rifle up. “From what I been seeing of your shootin’—looked to be you knew the difference atween firing quick … and firing smart.”

“I’m just as smart as you, any day.” And Bass turned his back on the tall man, dragging the hammer back to full cock and nestling the weapon into his shoulder.

His right eye watered. He blinked twice, trying to clear it. Thirty-two rods, 170 yards, was a tall order. And rattled the way he was, that made him think on the man he was trying to beat. It was down to the two of them now, their targets out there across the entirety of this grassy meadow on the outskirts of Burlington, Kentucky.

That far cloth strip was dancing, not near as much as were the others in that thirty-two rods. But he knew enough that the lead ball would have to cut itself through a lot of crosswind to reach that distant target. He inched the muzzle a wee bit farther to the left. Then feared he was holding too far off the target, was allowing too much for that breeze.

Licking his dry lips, Titus glanced at the long procession of stakes where the cloth strips fluttered between him and the far target. He let half his breath out and began to squeeze, flicking his eyes again to that distant flutter. Against his cheek the air moved. All around him the crowd fell to a muted hush. Dogs barked and yowled behind them, off somewhere in that great camp. He vowed to allow none of it to distract him.

Would no longer let his family’s lack of caring matter. Only, absolutely only thing to dwell on was this shot—this shot to win. The first shooter ever to win at sixteen years old.

The distant cloth fluttered down like a red-elm leaf drifting slowly to the autumn grass. The tall man’s gun roared.

Titus fired a heartbeat later.

Behind him arose a loud groan.

His heart rising to his throat, the youth strained to see through the gauzy strips of their gray gunsmoke. The murmurs grew louder. It looked as if his target had fallen, hit by his ball. But the spectators were grumbling, disappointed—for there in the distance atop that wooden frame sat the tall man’s target.

“Y-you didn’t hit yours!” Titus exclaimed, his mouth going dry with the realization he had won.

“Looks like you beat me, young’un.” The tall man stepped over to Titus and held out his hand. “Fair and square.”

Taking the man’s hand, he began to shake, jubilance at his victory just beginning to sink in.

“Hold on!”

They both turned at the shrill cry from the judge. Across the meadow the range marshals waved their little red flags back and forth. The judge turned to both shooters as an ominous silence descended upon the crowd.

“You fellers stay put. We’ll see what they need me for.”

For those long moments Titus tried to remember to breathe. So close to winning … it all seemed so cruel to drag out his victory with this little drama down there near the targets. Certain that he had hit his, for it had spun off to land in the grass while the tall man’s hadn’t budged at all.

Now the judge was returning, the two range officers close behind him.

“It’s over,” the man hollered as he came up.

Behind the shooters some of the crowd roared their approval while the rest pressed in, hundreds of curious gawkers wanting in on the reason for the delay.

“We have us a for-certain winner,” the judge added, coming to a halt, the pair of officers at his elbows.

Both nodded as if they had had themselves a hand in deciding its finality.

The judge held up one of the two targets, a bullet hole plainly visible just outside the black smudge. “This’un here’s marked for shooter number ten—the young’un here.”

“He didn’t hit his mark, did he?” a voice asked behind them.

“No, he didn’t,” the judge replied. “But if the only other shooter left in the match didn’t hit his target at all, then the contest would go to the man who at least hit closest to the mark.”

“Hear! Hear!” a few shouted. “The boy won it!”

There was a surge of movement at the edge of that jostling crowd pressing in on the shooters and judges. Amy slipped through them and stopped at Titus’s side, gripping his left arm in her two hands, eyes bright and moist, dancing with glee at his victory. She rose on her toes to plant a kiss on Titus’s cheek.

“Only problem is,” the judge continued, holding up both the targets and waving them to get the crowd to quiet down, “we can’t for the life of us figure out why shooter eight’s target didn’t fall.”

The tall man leaned forward, reaching for the wood plank. “Didn’t hit it at all?”

“That’s what we thought at first,” the judge replied, handing the shooter his target. “The men here thort you’d missed your target clean. ’Cause it didn’t fall off the stand. Meaning the boy here beat you.”

“Yeah, but lookee there, will you?” the tall man declared, holding his target up high at the end of his arm so the crowd could see. He stuffed a little finger through the hole.

Titus’s heart sank.

“Near square onto the middle,” the judge said. “An’ for some reason your target just got itself notched down in that stand so that it couldn’t fall. No matter—as you can all see, this man’s shot went through the black while the young’un’s here didn’t but nudge the black.”

One of the range officers immediately leaped forward to hoist the tall man’s arm, and the crowd instantly raised its boisterous agreement.

“We got us a new champeen!”

Amy was squeezing his arm as folks shoved past, anxious to press in on the winner.

“You done just fine, Titus,” she tried to cheer him. “Second outta all them shooters your first year, and shooting all that way over yonder—why, my pa said he ain’t seen such shooting since he can remember.”

“How come I don’t feel just fine, then, Amy?” he whimpered.

“Maybe you gotta learn how to win.”

He jerked up to find the tall man, his hand held out before him.

“Just like a man’s gotta learn how to lose. You damned near shot the pants off me, boy.” He was smiling broadly now as he pushed that floppy felt hat way back on his head. “Ain’t been that skairt of losing for a long, long time. Purty, it was: the way you know how to handle that ol’ squirrel gun of yours.”

“It were my grandpap’s.”

He pushed his hand closer to the youth. “What’s the name you go by, young feller?”

Titus finally seized the man’s hand again and shook hard, one sturdy pump of his arm. “Titus Bass, mister.”

“Nice to meet you, Titus Bass. A good grip you got.” He brushed the brim of his hat with a pair of fingers for Amy, then quickly looked back at Titus, eyes twinkling. “My friends call me Levi Gamble.”

Summer had a way of redeeming itself on an evening like this. These long, hot, and sticky Kentucky summer days grew tiresome in the Ohio country come late August.

Yet redemption arrived after sundown when the flies ceased droning and the mosquitoes no longer raised angry welts on what bare skin one had provided for their feast that afternoon. Cool breezes stirred the weeping willows and rustled the leaves of the red elm. The heavy air hung rich with the fragrance of sumac and trumpet-flower vines climbing the dogwood and pecan trees. Fires twinkled through that encampment like a sugar-coated crusting of flickering diamonds against the indigo seep of night.

It was as if Titus could breathe again. After the heat of that long afternoon. After the drama of the rifle match.

With Amy’s supper in his belly they had set off hand in hand in no certain direction once the youngest of the Whistler brood had been put in their blankets, seeking a stroll through camp beneath a half-moon this last night before the revelers would pack up come morning and drift off in all directions for home, to talk across another full year of the Longhunters Fair just past and gossip on what next summer would bring.

As long as this year was in passing, he doubted 1811 would ever arrive.

Days like this one went far to prove how reluctant summer was to lose its grip on the land. Yet day eventually gave way to night—balanced in the sort of evening that could stir a young man’s juices, cause him to think on little else but getting his girl off to himself—to touch all those forbidden places on her young body once more. As exciting and compelling as was his desire for Amy at this moment … his dread that he had already put her with child cooled his fevered ardor.

Once during their walk she had pulled him into the shadows of the overhanging umbrella of long weeping-willow branches and there put her mouth on his, stoking his fire with the sudden, fierce intensity of a blacksmith’s bellows. Amy took his hand and raised it to her breast, squeezing his fingers around and over that soft flesh covered by a thin layer of her summer dress. In that brief and stolen moment she groaned at the back of her throat, exciting him while aroused herself at the same time.

Her lips were moist, wet enough so that her mouth slid across his. It seemed she became hungrier as he grew breathless. Rolling her hips upward, Amy pressed herself into him, more insistent still as she sensed his flesh harden and grow. He had to have her.

Titus whispered, “Got to find us a place … some place—”

But as his mouth left hers, fear drenched him with cold once more.

A child. Marriage. Settling on the land. Rooted to one spot the way his father, and grandpap before him, had sunk their lives into a particular piece of ground. Great-grandpap before them had been a different tale: come here in the beginning when it was a new land, fresh and un-walked, when adventure waited among the wild critters and the Injuns too. Perhaps great-grandpap hadn’t realized what he was doing when he’d brought his family here to raise up a cabin and a passel of young’uns too.

Such was a legacy Titus feared he could not live up to.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered at his ear, her breath hot and moist. “Find us a place. Yes, yes! I promised you—touch
me all over again like you done at the swimming hole.”

“You … you’re,” and he wanted desperately to find a way to say it. “Gimme a chance to figure it all out.”

Amy stiffened, drawing herself back to arm’s length. “Figure out what?”

“This being a father.”

“Already you learned that it don’t take nothing much to be a father,” she said, stepping back against him, her head below his chin. “I liked how quick you learned.”

“Scares me.”

“The babe scares you?” she asked, taking up his hand again, this time placing it against the flat of her belly. “This little child what brings us together as husband and wife?”

Extracting his hand from hers, Titus turned slightly, staring out at the flickering fires that pricked the meadow like dancing fireflies, campsites extending from tree line to tree line to tree line. In a gust of laughter carried to them on the breeze, he thought he recognized a voice drifting over from a nearby camp.

Turning to Amy, he said, “Ain’t the child what scares me. What I’m afeared of is living the life my pap cut out for hisself.”

“Don’t you want the same things he has, Titus? A home and family, making a living for us outta the ground?”

He looked away from her face, not able to gaze into those frightened eyes. “I think you always knowed the answer to your own question, Amy. Down inside, you knowed the answer all along.”

“There’s still time to decide, Titus,” she replied, pressing herself back against him. “Time for you to finish your schooling. Then you can figure out what we’re gonna do about a family and where we can put down roots.”

Gripping her shoulders, he stared intently into those doe eyes. “Sounds like you don’t have no idea what I’m trying to tell you. This ain’t about deciding where to put down roots, Amy. This got all to do with not putting down any roots at all.”

She lunged for his arm as he turned away. “Where you going?”

“C’mon,” he replied, taking one of her hands in his. “You come with me.”

As they stabbed their way through the spindly branches of weeping willow, Titus was sure, all the more determined, especially when he heard another burst of laughter. It was his voice.

Drawn to the tall, freedom-loving hunter every bit as much as he was drawn to the soft flesh of Amy Whistler. The sound of his laughter and the merry talk drew Titus on, tugging on her hand to keep up.

“Yo, ho!” Levi Gamble called out, turning as he spotted them come into the light. “Look here who approaches camp!”

He watched Gamble stand from the stump where he and three others were calling out their bets in playing quadrille, a most popular game played between four persons with the forty cards left in a deck after the tens, nines, and eights had been discarded. At that moment, backlit in firelight, the woodsman seemed even taller than he had that afternoon.

Titus shuffled nervously, explained his interruption. “We was out taking ourselves a walk and I heard your voice.”

“C’mon. C’mon—you’re among friends here, Titus Bass. Sit yourselves and join us.” He turned to the others at the fire as he swept up the greasy cards into his hands. “Titus is the lad nearly whupped me in the shooting match today. A likely hunter he’ll make one day soon.”