Dance on the Wind (84 page)

“I allays liked this gun,” the man said when he passed it over the counter to Bass. “But I knowed there’d be a man come in one day that’d give me more’n just money for it. I knowed for certain there’d come a fella who’d gimme a real good reason to sell it to him. You done that, son.”

How Titus caressed that .54-caliber flintlock now. Not the prettiest Pennsylvanian he had wrapped his hands around at those Longhunters Fairs in his youth back to Boone County, Kentucky, but by damned it would do for
a workingman’s rifle. Being a heavy Derringer, Bass knew it would shoot as true as any engraved, wire-inlaid Kentucky squirrel gun. And unlike those eastern rifles, this one would pack enough wallop to bring down the beasts where he was fixing to go.

Just as lovingly as he had touched all his women before, Titus now ran his hands over the slightly Romannosed stock, the big goosenecked hammer and cast-brass patchbox, its top finial filed in the shape of an eagle’s head.

“What reason did I give you?” Titus asked of a sudden, remembering the certainty of the old man’s declaration.

“You told me you was the one gonna take that there rifle to the mountains,” the shopkeeper replied. “From what I come to know of folks in my many years—I’ll wager hard money you are the man to carry this here big rifle out to that far yonder. I can see it … right there in your eyes.”

Through the following five weeks he labored long hours to pay off Troost what he owed him in barter for what Titus had used in crafting springs and lock plates, thimbles and other furniture for the riflesmith. And without fail every one of those spring nights Bass threw the pouch over his shoulder and the saddle on that Indian pony—riding down to the grove, where he blazed a new mark on the tree where Washburn had him shoot of a bygone time. The sting of sulfur in that black homemade powder like a rich perfume in his nostrils.

So it was that the pony came to know the man’s particular smell, the way he touched the animal, the way that rider felt upon its back, over the weeks, and months, and all those seasons as he brushed and curried the animal, fed it Troost’s best cut grass, riding that rawboned pony every evening as he set off to practice with that big-bored full-stocked flintlock. Slowly coming to know the man all the more because Titus rode him from sunrise to sundown each Sunday—his one day off each week—not returning until the sun had milked itself from the sky, when from the pony’s back he would pull the old saddle he had patched and repaired for Washburn, finally to curl up within his
new wool blankets and dream on those far and Shining Mountains.

“You and me’r even,” Hysham gruffly declared early of a morning as Titus strolled in from the outhouse, ready to stoke the fires in the forge for another day.

Bass stopped dead in his tracks, not sure he could believe what he had heard. “E-even?”

“Means you don’t owe me ’nother day’s wages, Titus,” Troost explained with more than an edge of sadness, “less’n mayhaps you want to stay on and work for me ’nother eight or nine more years.”

He stared, unbelieving, into the older man’s glistening eyes, asking, “We … we’re even you say?”

“Said it already,” the burly blacksmith replied a little angrily, blinking at the smart of the tears. “You’re free to go. And when you do, damn well be sure to take that good-for-nothing jug-head of a Injun cayuse with you. I don’t want ’er around here, raising ruckus with my good studs when she comes into season again.”

His heart pounding, Titus took a step closer to the blacksmith. “This … this means … I can go?”

“Gonna miss you,” Troost said, volving his head slightly so Bass would not see him stab a big finger at his offending eyes. “Goddamned dust you stirred up shuffling in just now got me—”

Titus caught him in a fierce embrace before the blacksmith realized it. “You’re a good man, Hysham Troost. A damned good,
good
man.”

“G-g’won now, Titus Bass,” he growled, trying to wiggle himself loose from the younger man’s arms. “Get what all you got to take with you packed on that ol’ dun mare back there.”

“The … the mare?”

He gazed at the younger man through the haze filming his eyes. “She’s as sure a packhorse as there ever was, or Hysham Troost don’t know stink from horseflesh. Good of hoof, and nary a stronger back have I seen in many a year.”

Bass started to turn, nearly stumbling over his own feet as part of him began to move away in giddy anticipation, yet another part of him stood rooted to the spot in
fear, uncertainty, and loss he sensed beginning to well up within.

“Now, get, Titus Bass,” Troost growled. “You’ll find a pack frame I left for you sitting on the top rail of that last corral down aside your stall.”

By then Bass was crying, bawling every bit as much as a babe. Tears spilled as he careened back close and swept up Hysham’s hand, squeezing it. “You … I’ll … can’t never forget you for this.”

“I don’t ’spect you ever will, Titus,” he said, his voice back to blustering. “Now, go and get yourself packed afore I find you something else to do round here.”

Titus whirled frenetically about the few square feet of that tiny stall he had turned into his home for those many seasons of waiting, of moving through one day after another without hope. Quickly he lashed up within the six blankets what he had purchased with Washburn: kettles and flints, beads and mirrors, vermilion and knives, camp axes and all the rest that together he and Isaac had purchased with Titus’s forge money. Then he took down that sawbuck pack saddle he had repaired just last week for Troost, realizing as he cinched it onto the back of that dun mare that the old blacksmith had planned even then to make a gift of it to Bass. New rawhide and iron rivets, brand-new sheep-hide padding. The mare turned at Titus’s gentle touch and nuzzled his shoulder as the man knotted the last loop of látigo, everything he owned strapped now on the horse’s back in those two pitifully small bundles of what little Titus would take west.

Sweeping up his pouch, then his rifle, Bass led the pony and the dun mare toward the street-side doors that faced Third, where Troost stood with his fists balled on his hips, the birth of that Sunday rising behind him as Titus came up and stopped.

“Light’s got a head start on you already, boy. Don’t ’spect you should waste any more of the day—seeing how far you got to go.”

Bass couldn’t say a word. Didn’t, as much as he tried, his jaw working in futility the way it was. So what he did instead was grab that blacksmith again and this time plant a kiss on the gruff old man’s hairy cheek.

Then he flung himself right into the old saddle as Troost stood rooted to that spot at the doorway, stunned into silence, the fingers of one huge, muscular hand brushing the cheek where Titus had left that kiss of farewell.

Blinking into the dawn’s bright arrival, Hysham said, “You find that place what you’re looking for, you let me know.”

Shifting the fullstock rifle so that it rested across the tops of his thighs, Bass replied, “I’ll be back one day. Count on that.”

“Titus, I’m counting on you finding what it is calling you out there.”

“I will, Hysham. I damn well will.”

Troost took his hand from his cheek and held it up to the younger man. Titus gripped it in his, then let go and suddenly turned his face west as the tears began to fall, nudging his heels into that Indian pony’s ribs, leading the dun mare out of the livery into that first morning of freedom.

Pointing his nose toward the Buffalo Palace.

T
ERRY
C. J
OHNSTON
was born the first day of 1947 on the plains of Kansas and lived all his life in the American West. His first novel,
Carry the Wind,
won the Medicine Pipe Bearer’s Award from the Western Writers of America, and his subsequent books appeared on bestseller lists throughout the country. After writing more than thirty novels of the American frontier, he passed away in March 2001 in Billings, Montana. Terry’s work combined the grace and beauty of a natural storyteller with a complete dedication to historical accuracy and authenticity. He continues to bring history to life in the pages of his historical novels so that readers can live the grand adventure of the American West. While recognized as a master of the American historical novel, to family and friends Terry remained and will be remembered as a dear, loving father and husband as well as a kind, generous, and caring friend. He has gone on before us to a better place, where he will wait to welcome us in days to come.

If you would like to help carry on the legacy of Terry C. Johnston, you are invited to contribute to the

Terry C. Johnston Memorial Scholarship Fund
c/o Montana State University–Billings Foundation
1500 N. 30th Street
Billings, MT 59101-0298
1-888-430-6782

For more information on other Terry C. Johnston novels,
visit his website at
http://www.imt.net/-tjohnston

send e-mail to
[email protected]

or write to
Terry C. Johnston’s West
P.O. Box 50594
Billings, MT 59105

Here is the eagerly awaited sequel to Terry C. Johnston’s bestselling frontier trilogy,
Carry the Wind, BorderLords,
and
One-Eyed Dream,
as readers watch the mountain man Titus Bass continue his heart-wrenching journey through the perils of the Wild West.

Ride the Moon Down
is another triumph of the master of frontier fiction, Terry C. Johnston, who brings to life once more vivid slices of America’s history.

Turn the page for a special preview of the opening chapter of this fascinating novel.

The baby stirred between them.

She eventually fussed enough to bring Bass fully awake, suddenly, sweating beneath the blankets.

Without opening her eyes, the child’s mother groggily drew the infant against her breast and suckled the babe back to sleep.

Titus kicked the heavy wool horse blanket off his legs, hearing one of the horses nicker. Not sure which one of the four it was, the trapper sat up quiet as coal cotton, letting the blanket slip from his bare arms as he dragged the rifle from between his knees.

Somewhere close, out there in the dark, he heard the low warning rumble past the old dog’s throat. Bass hissed—immediately silencing Zeke.

Several moments slipped by before he heard another sound from their animals. But for the quiet breathing of mother and the
ngg-ngg
suckling of their daughter, the summer night lay all but silent around their camp at the base of a low ridge.

Straining to see the unseeable, Bass glanced overhead to search for the moon in that wide canopy stretching across the treetops. Moonset already come and gone. Nothing left but some puny starshine. As he blinked a third time, his groggy
brain finally remembered that his vision wasn’t what it had been. For weeks now that milky cloud covering his left eye was forcing his right to work all the harder.

Then his nose suddenly captured something new on the nightwind. A smell musky and feral—an odor not all that familiar, just foreign enough that he strained his recollections to put a finger on it.

Then off to the side of camp his ears heard the padding of the dog’s big feet as Zeke moved stealthily through the stands of aspen that nearly surrounded this tiny pocket in the foothills he had found for them late yesterday afternoon.

And from farther in the darkness came another low, menacing growl—

Titus practically jumped out of his skin when she touched him, laying her fingers against his bare arm. He turned to peer back, swallowing hard, that lone eye finding Waits by the Water in what dim light seeped over them there beneath the big square of oiled Russian sheeting he had lashed between the trees should the summer sky decide to rain on them through the night.

He could hear Zeke moving again, not near so quietly this time, angling farther out from camp.

Bass laid a long finger against her lips, hoping it would tell her enough. Waits nodded slightly and kissed the finger just before he pulled it away and rocked forward onto his knees, slowly standing. Smelling. Listening.

Sure enough the old dog was in motion, growling off to his right—not where he had heard Zeke a moment before. Yonder, toward the horses at the edge of the gently sloping meadow.

Had someone, red or white, stumbled upon them camped here? he wondered as he took a first barefooted step, then listened some more. Snake country, this was—them Shoshone—though Crow were known to plunge this far south, Arapaho push in too. Had some hunting party found their tracks and followed them here against the bluff?

Every night of their journey north from Taos Bass had damn well exercised caution. They would stop late in the lengthening afternoons and water their horses, then let them graze a bit while he gathered wood for a small fire he always built directly beneath the wide overhang of some branches to disperse the smoke. Waits nursed the baby and when her tummy was full Bass’s Crow wife passed the child to him. If
his daughter was awake after her supper, the trapper cuddled the babe across his arm or bounced her gently in his lap while Waits cooked their supper. But most evenings the tiny one fell asleep as the warm milk filled her tummy.