Death Rattle (11 page)

He and Bill Williams ended up riding off for Fort Uintah with thirteen men in tow. To march right into California with Bill’s brazen plan of sweeping up two thousand or more Mexican horses, Scratch knew they would need more than twenty riders. For the time being, the success of their California expedition rested in the lap of Thomas L. Smith, that fiery redheaded, hot-tempered veteran of both the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and more than one lucrative journey to the land of long-horned ranchos. If Peg-Leg ended up drafting another ten or more recruits, then their foray against the land of the missions would make each of the riders a wealthy man no more than weeks from now.

But if they attempted to punch their way into and out of California with too weak a force—hurled up against not only the vaqueros tending the ranchos but small squads of Mexican
soldados
as well—then this daring
ride west into that foreign land lapped by the western ocean could well be their last hurraw. And he would never see his family again.

The days had not only been growing longer but hotter too, each night not nearly so cool as they had been. Summer was ready to bloom. The knitting of the stars overhead had taken a definite northward shift, along with that tilt to the path the sun scoured across the sky each day. It glowed hotter every morning, and hung up there longer every afternoon.

Then today they had run across these mists of troublesome buffalo gnats—disgusting little creatures so tiny a man might miss them if it weren’t for the fact that they traveled in clouds that swarmed and swirled around the heads of their horses and pack animals, hovered around every square inch of bare flesh the men had exposed to the galling heat. It was as if the creatures’ very feet were on fire when they alighted on his flesh, even before the gnats began to bite and burrow.

No wonder the shaggy buffalo had long, coarse, matted hair shrouding its eyes. An admirable protection from these annoying insects that zealously followed the herds, or any other warm-blooded, breathing creature who happened to pass close enough that the cloudy swarms sensed the body heat of those other unsuspecting mammals.

By midafternoon when they stopped to let the horses drink, the swarms surprisingly drifted off, theirs a dark mist weaving up the cooler bottom of a coulee as the sun finally appeared committed to falling toward the western horizon that day. Bass knelt on the creekbank, leaned over, and drank alongside the men and animals. Then he freed a second black-silk kerchief where he had knotted it around the strap to his shooting pouch and soaked the cloth in the cold water. After wringing it out, he rubbed it over his face, pulling his long hair aside so he could swab the back of his clammy neck. That done, he crudely knotted it around his long, coarse hair, allowing the damp handkerchief to drip, drip, drip down his backbone as he stood and stepped over to Williams.

“Was just cogitating on somethin’, Bill,” he began.

Williams looked up at Bass. “The heat can damn well swell up a man’s head like that. It’s a fact.”

“I figger you got yourself a damned good reason why you’re heading southwest across the wastes to California this time of year.”

“I do.” And Williams bent over for one last noisy slurp at the creek. Then he stood and explained. “Any other time of the year, this right here would be a problem.”

The leader gestured at the gurgling creek.

“Water,” Titus observed.

“Water,” Williams repeated. “Come late summer, them creeks and springs and seeps down in that country we’re gonna have to ride through will all be drying up—disappearing into dust.”

A few of the other riders were stepping closer as Scratch remarked, “Weather’d be cooler come autumn.”

“But with nary a drop of rain or a flake of snow to refill them waterholes,” Williams declared. “Naw, my friend—you’ll see for your own self that there’s but one time of the year to make this crossing. ’Specially when we’re pushing thousands of horses ahead of us, and every last one of ’em needs a lot of water to make it back to these here mountains.”

“Only gonna get hotter from here on out,” Scratch stated. “South where we’re headed.”

“We ain’t see hot yet,” Williams warned. “Ain’t seen nothing of dry either. I wouldn’t dare try what we’re about to do any other time of the year but here at the end of spring. Turning back by midsummer. Any later’n that—why, our bones might just rot out there in them wastes with the bones of all them Mexican horses we couldn’t get back to the mountains without water.”

With a grin, Bass snorted, “So you claim we ain’t on a fool’s errand?”

“Could be, ol’ friend,” Bill replied, smiling.

“That’s good,” Titus said as he slapped a hand on the older trapper’s shoulder. “I was beginning to wonder if you wasn’t making it sound like this was serious
business. Sure as hell glad to hear we’re out on some great lark you dreamed up, Bill! Beaver’s gone to hell and the mountain trade is disappeared like winter breath smoke—why, no better reason we ought’n just have ourselves some fun!”

“Especially if it’s the last thing any of us do in this here life,” Williams said, his grin slowly fading. “Awright, you
ciboleros!”
he shouted at the others, calling them buffalo hunters. “Let’s get back in the saddle—by my reckoning, we’ll be pounding on Robidoux’s back door by sundown!”

The sun had turned every butte and mesa a startling red, so bloodily surreal it seemed as if the entire earth around them were the same burnished copper as were those trinkets and religious objects hammered out by a Mexican craftsman. Then down in that wide bottom he recognized from three years past, Scratch spotted the stockade and the small herds of horses grazing here and there on the low hillsides farther downriver.

They could hear distant voices hallooing and begin to make out telltale shadows of men emerging at the top of the near wall, a few coming out of the stockade on foot to have themselves a look. Across the river from the post stood a scattering of lodges, low and squat. Ute, he suspected.

“That you, Bill?” a voice cried as they approached.

“Peg-Leg?”

One of the figures hobbled away from the rest of those on foot and waved his hat. “You brung a good bunch with you?”

Williams reined to a halt beside Smith, held down his hand, and they clasped wrists. “Not near enough to bring out all them horses I planned on, Peg-Leg.” He straightened in the saddle and sighed. “I’m hoping you done us some good here.”

“Got a few hands, Bill,” Smith admitted. “But I didn’t come up with near as many as we’d hoped would come west with us to the Mexican diggings.”

“Let’s go have us some victuals,” Bass said as he brought his roan to a halt on the other side of Smith.

“Lordee tells. That really Scratch?” Peg-Leg asked as he pivoted on the wooden limb.

“How-do, Thomas,” Titus cheered as more of their bunch came to a halt around them.

For a moment Smith glared hard-eyed at Bass, then suddenly grinned as he held up his hand to the horseman. “Been a long time, Scratch. I see no gol-durned Black-foot’s knocked you in the head and stole what you got left for a mangy skelp.”

“You was hoping my hair would get raised after we stole them horses back from you?”

Smith laughed easy and genuine. “I ain’t never carried me no hard feelings for nothing, Scratch. Less of all, for you and them others coming here to take back them Snake horses.”

“It’s all water gone downhill long ago,” Titus mused.

“Damn sure is,” Smith agreed. “Why—when me an’ Bill left here after that ruckus we had with you an’ Walker, we ended up stealin’ a lot more horses from the Mexicans that year!”

“More horses’n we could’ve stole round here!” Bill roared.

Williams and Smith had their chuckle before Peg-Leg turned and hobbled off with a wave, starting the procession toward the stockade as shadows quickly deepened. More hallooing greeted the new arrivals as they neared the walls, men streaming out that lone open gate as lanterns began to glow behind the tiny, rawhide-covered windows pocking the walls of those few miserable cabins inside the fort.

“Robidoux here?” Bill asked.

“He’s here,” Smith declared as they halted before the gate. “But he’ll be leaving for Taos soon to fetch up more trade goods. Leave off your horses to graze over yonder with ours and bring your gear inside the walls. We been sleeping inside under the stars nights waiting for you.”

“We? Who else you got gonna be a good gun to have along?” Williams inquired.

“Two of them went with us that first year, Bill.”

“Who?”

“Dick … Dick Owens,” Smith declared guardedly, his voice lowering. “And, Thompson too.”

“Philip
Thompson?” Bass echoed in alarm.

Smith pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes knowingly, and nodded. “You two fellers just stay outta each other’s way, and we won’t have us no trouble on this ride.”

Just how in blue blazes could two men keep from stepping on one another’s tails when both of them were going to be following Bill Williams and Thomas L. Smith out to California and back again with several thousand horses?

Maybe he just ought to pack up come morning and light out for the Bent brothers’ Arkansas fort, or one of those posts farther north on the South Platte. Perhaps he could dig up his cache near the mouth of the Popo Agie and trade off a few peltries, managing to end up with what geegaws he wanted for his woman, those things he wanted to give his children. Not everything to be sure. Only a soft-brained idiot wouldn’t admit that the bottom had gone out of beaver and it was going to be some time before the business rehabilitated itself. But in the meantime, Scratch figured he could get a little of this and a little of that, enough to show his family just how much he cared. If a man didn’t bust his ass to make it so his family could have a few good things—what in hell did a man bust his ass for anyway?

Time was, when there were no strings on his heart, Titus worked those freezing months in the high-country streams so he could reward himself with a good time once a year or so at summer rendezvous, maybe afford a new shirt or a pair of those fancy black-silk handkerchiefs, besides his necessaries. But a man didn’t work just to make a living … that made him nothing more than a slave to those who bought the fruits of his labor.

Now there weren’t that many buyers left. And what those few buyers were paying for plew wasn’t near enough to make a good living for any man daring to
wade around in icy streams. Beaver was gone belly-up. Buffalo hides brought a squaw far more than the labors of any trapper. Buffalo better’n beaver? These mountains sure as hell had gone crazy!

Any man with a tin cup full of beads, a few hanks of silk ribbon, or a dozen packets of vermillion could talk a back-broke squaw out of a buffalo robe … when a man had to work hardscrabble in finding a likely stream with good sign, choose where to make his set, wade out crotch deep to pound in his trap stake, then wait before he would return to learn if his efforts had been rewarded or not.

But with buffalo, all a nigger had to do was trade off a few cheap geegaws for a winter-kill’t robe!

Maybe there was a chance the Bents or other traders on east of the mountains would give him a fair enough price on his beaver that he would not have to return home to Crow country empty-handed come autumn. He sure enough had time to pull out in the morning, tramp south to avoid those low passes still clogged with snow, then swing back north again along the Front Range—getting back home to her in good time before she’d start to fret and worry.

Perhaps when he got back home, he might even trade away some of that foofaraw he bartered off the traders for a few robes from the Crow women up in Absaroka. He could carry those robes over east to Tullock near the mouth of the Tongue—

What a chuckleheaded fool he was! Caught himself scheming how to become a robe trader on his own hook. No sense in sinking that low. A man had his pride and self-respect. A man had to earn himself a living … not live off the sweat of others.

But, this raid on California might well be the last shining chance to rear its head up in the middle of the twisting path that was his life. In dimly remembered years gone before he had recognized that first great opportunity when it stared him in the face near Rabbit Flash, Kentucky. Eagerly he seized that chance to escape the life of a
farmer, to float down the great rivers all the way to New Orleans—to grapple with life on his terms.

But once in St. Louis he had all but smothered that fire in his breast out of fear or not knowing, worse yet—out of self-doubt. Another opportunity beckoned, standing squarely athwart his path, seductively beckoning him to the Rocky Mountains if only he dared to stare Lady Fate in the eye.

When he lost hair and was left for dead in those shining mountains, lesser men would wisely have chosen a different path from there on out. And when he learned that three former friends had stolen everything from him, lesser men would never have set out to put things right, or die trying. Later when an old friend killed a chief’s wife and Bass was handed the task of bringing back the hair—most men, lesser men to be sure, would have ridden off and never come back.…

Over and over life had laid obstacles and opportunities in his path, to do with either as he saw fit. And here at Fort Uintah as the raiders gathered before setting off for the California missions and ranchos, Lady Fate was beckoning to him once again. Luring, enticing, seductive in her sloe-eyed, half-lidded come-hither of an unflinching invitation. Ride to California and bring back his share of the horses he could then sell to the highest bidder. Just as things had been with beaver in the heyday of the fur trade.

He could turn his back on what might be this one last chance before these mountains changed forever … turn his back, ride away come morning, and wonder for all the rest of his days what might have been for him and those he loved.

But, Titus Bass had never shirked opportunity, or flinched in the face of challenge. As one of the last hardy holdouts, he had ridden down the moon on the beaver trade. What more was he expected to do, after all? This raid could bring him the wealth that had eluded him for all these seasons. But to make it, he had to put up with Philip Thompson.