Death Rattle (34 page)

“Time to time, we watched white men come out of the east, climb out of the desert and cross over to the California missions—
y caballos quieren, por es vienen tan legitos
—for the horses they wanted they come all this way,” Hezekiah explained. “Later on it was when one of the runaways told us these was Americans, come to steal Mexican horses and mules, take them Mexican animals—
quizas muchas
—many horses, back toward the States.”

But Hezekiah Christmas never had any desire to make
himself known to the Americans. No urge to return east himself. As he explained it to Titus, he did not see himself as an American. Back there in the States, he would either be a slave in the South, or nothing more than a poor, second-class citizen in the North.

“An’ back there to the west,” Hezekiah said as he pointed over their shoulders at Mexican California, “I’d be no better off than the rest of these here poor
mansos
the Mexicans made their slaves.”

“You been up here a long, long time,” Bass said, “and never wanted to go back east?”

With a shrug, Christmas said, “I can’t ’spect you to unnerstand.”

“You’re wrong, Hezekiah. I figger I know just how you feel.”

“Y-you do unnerstand why I won’t ever go back?” the Negro asked.

“Maybe I know ’cause I got me the same feelings as you at times.” And Titus nodded. “Better you stay a man in between, here in this no-man’s-land between California and them proper white folks in the states of America. Right here you’re as free a man as any fella ever there was. Able to look any man in the eye.”

“Qui milagro es este!
What a miracle this is!” and Hezekiah grinned. “You unnerstand—just like you unnerstood when you busted me out’n that cage on the Mississap.”

“Si,
my friend. Man finds himself a place his heart’s at peace, like you done,” Bass finally admitted softly, “that man best be about putting down some roots.”

“We watched your bunch ride through the pass for to steal the horses,” Hezekiah declared late the next night when Williams and Smith finally stopped the herd to give them and the men a few hours of rest. “An’ we watched you coming back again with all them horses. Figgered we might as well pick off a few of those Mexican horses from you ourselves.”

“You and your red niggers was gonna steal some of our horses?” demanded Henry Daws.

The white men gathered at the two fires fell quiet while the Negro slowly turned toward Philip Thompson’s group.

“Ain’t that just like a Neegra!” Thompson himself cawed, made bold in the company of so many friends. “Go an’ steal what another man’s got by his own sweat!”

The others cackled with Thompson.

“You had plenty ’nough,” Christmas said, easing round to the fire once more.

“Don’t turn your back on me, you wuthless black son of a bitch!” Thompson growled. “I’ll teach you to—”

“Stay where you are,” Bass warned as he lunged to his feet, swallowed hard, and inched his hand toward the butt of that pistol stuffed in his belt.

“What? The ol’ man’s gonna stick up for this black-assed bastard!” Thompson roared, half bent with laughter.

“No, he ain’t,” Christmas claimed, his back still turned on Thompson. “No man’s gotta stick up for me.”

That dashed cold water on Thompson’s raw laughter. “What’d you say to me, you black bastard?”

Now Hezekiah turned to peer over his shoulder. “Afore I come to California—I run onto lots of stupid white men like you. Whorin’ and drinkin’ up an’ down the Mississap.”

Bass watched how the firelight played off the growing red of Thompson’s face.

“Black nigger or red nigger,” Thompson growled, his hand tightening around the handle of his knife. “Neither one wuth the trouble it takes to kill ’em.”

Titus turned toward the man, his pistol in plain view now, warning, “You aim to get to Hezekiah, gonna have to come through me first.”

Easing his knife out of its rawhide scabbard, Thompson said to the men on either side of him, “If Bass yanks on that belt gun, you fellas shoot ’im dead.”

John Bowers and Samuel Gibbon both grinned,
leveling their rifles at Scratch. Bowers said, “Be glad to ’blige him, Phil. Be glad to.”

With that crooked smile widening, Thompson took another step toward Hezekiah—

“You gonna get yourself killed,” Bill Williams warned him as he stood suddenly at the edge of the fire.

Tom Smith put his hand on Williams’s arm. “You damn well better stay out of it, Bill. Phil’s been wanting to cut his way into Bass for some time now.”

“Ever since Bass stole back them horses from us at Robidoux’s fort,” Thompson confessed.

Williams protested, “I recollect there was a hull bunch of others took ’em back from us ’sides Bass—”

“But none of them bastards ever been standing so close to me as Titus Bass is right now.”

Scratch asked, “That’s et on you ever since, ain’t it? What me and Meek and Joe Walker all done to you,”

“Too damn long.” Thompson’s crooked smile grew cruel. “So I’ll cut this black bastard’s throat … then I’ll open you up like a gutted hog.”

“The man’s good with a knife,” Williams warned out of the corner of his mouth. “Damn, damn good, Scratch.”

For a moment, Bass glanced at the eyes of the others as they pointed their rifles his way. Then he stared at Thompson while he told Williams, “I ain’t never been partial to knives myself, Bill. But I allays hold my own in a fight. The rest of you,”—and he waved both arms to the other white men who were still gathered close—“just back off now. Give us some room for this li’l fandango Thompson wants to dance with me.”

“Watch that Neegra!” Felix Warren bawled as Hezekiah rose to his feet.

“I’ll kill the black nigger myself, Phil,” Pete Harris offered.

“Just keep Bass out of it till I’ve cut this black-assed bastard into li’l red pieces.”

As he slowly withdrew his own knife from his belt, Christmas asked, “He really good with a knife, Titus Bass?”

“Dunno, Hezekiah. Never see’d much fight in the man,” Bass goaded, hoping his words might well prod Thompson into a blind lather. “He’s always give up when it’s come down to real fighting.”

“G-give up?” Thompson squealed like a stuck pig, twisting his big knife this way and that in the firelight.

“Always let others do your fighting for you, ain’cha, Thompson!” Titus needled.

“Gonna kill you my own self here an’ now—”

As the tall white man started toward Bass standing at the left side of the fire pit, Christmas surprised everyone by suddenly shoving Titus aside. That muscular heave sent Scratch sprawling into the legs of some bystanders as Hezekiah sprang into what open ground lay between the two white men—landing in a crouch, his skinning knife out before him. A weapon only half the size of Thompson’s huge butcher’s blade.

The trapper stopped, then a wicked smile slowly came across his face as he lumbered forward, feinting first this way, then that, side to side as he slowly advanced.

“Hezekiah—no!” Bass cried out in desperation as more of the California Indians appeared at the edge of the light.

Dick Owens bellowed, “Kill ’im, Phil!”

With a wild lunge, Thompson made a wide swipe with the butcher knife. Christmas vaulted backward as the white man’s arm shot past in a blur, angling up the tip of his smaller knife so that it raked the underside of Thompson’s forearm. With an anguished gasp, the trapper turned the wound over to inspect it there by the firelight, his eyes narrowing less in pain than in growing fury.

“Awright, you black sack of assholes,” he grumbled. “You want me kill you first so bad—”

But Thompson was interrupted and kept from moving from that spot when Bill Williams bolted forward, pistol in hand. The instant the muzzle was jammed against Thompson’s ribs, the trapper’s mouth stopped moving. Nothing more than a round, wide hole in Thompson’s face as his eyes glared down at the pistol and the hand that held that weapon.

“Leave ’im go, Solitaire!” Smith demanded. “This ain’t none of our goddamn business.”

“Drop the knife, Phil,” Williams ordered, ignoring his partner.

Smith stepped closer in the next heartbeat. With his hand on his own pistol and a harsh edge to his voice, he said, “Maybeso I didn’t make it so clear, Bill. I said this weren’t none of our business.”

That’s when Williams finally turned to glare at Smith. “I’m making it my business, Peg-Leg. You got a problem with that, then you can take it up with me soon as I blow a goddamn hole in Thompson’s lights.”

“Y-you taking sides in something ain’t your affair,” Thompson hissed at Williams.

“He’s right, Solitaire,” Smith warned. “You’re coming down on the wrong side of things here. I ain’t gonna let you take the Neegra’s side on this.”

Pulling a pistol from his belt, Scratch declared, “Peg-Leg, it’s Thompson on the wrong side all the way ’round. I won’t stand for no man—Thompson or
you
—bringing harm to the fella what pulled our hash out of the fire yesterday morning.”

“You think hard on that, Peg-Leg,” Williams advised. “You an’ Thompson ’bout to pull some soft-brained stunt. A damn fine way to thank the man what brung all these Injuns to help us throw back the greasers.”

“They even saved your miserable life, Thompson,” Bass growled.

“I wanna see your blood soaking into the dirt under my feet, Titus Bass,” the trapper growled, twisting his big knife this way and that in the air.

“G’won back to your fire,” Williams ordered.

“Now, dammit! I told you, Solitaire,” Smith snarled. “I’m leading this outfit too an’ I say Thompson don’t have to go nowhere—”

Ignoring his partner, Williams interrupted by saying, “Told you go back to your fire, Thompson. Now get!”

For a moment, Thompson glared down at the pistol pressed into his ribs, then into Williams’s face. Finally …“Awright.”

As he turned on his heel, Thompson roughly shoved Bill’s pistol aside, then slid the butcher knife back into its rawhide sheath.

Williams peered over at Smith. “Spit it on out, Peg-Leg. Like a mouthful of hornets—’pears you got some trouble with me.”

“Wasn’t none of yours to—”

“I made it mine.”

Titus took a step closer to Smith. “Sounds to me you don’t figger we owe our lives to Hezekiah Christmas?”

The one-legged trapper peered at the tall Negro with growing disdain. “Don’t owe nothing to none of these red niggers,” he grumbled. “ ‘Specially don’t owe a thing to no black-assed renegade run off to live in the blanket with these Digger Injuns.”

Bass watched Smith pivot away on his wooden pin. “Don’t understand you, Peg-Leg.” He waited until the redheaded trapper stopped and looked over his shoulder at him before he said, “We just come out of Californy with the biggest herd anyone ever stole … so we should be having us a hurraw right about now ’stead of fixin’ to kill a friend what came to—”

“That black son of a bitch ain’t no friend of mine!” Thompson roared from the nearby fire.

“Last I’ll say is that son of a bitch and his red niggers better be turning back where they come from afore first light when we push on,” Smith warned.

Just as Titus was opening his mouth to speak, Christmas beat him to it by saying, “We turning back, that’s for sure. That desert down there ain’t fit for the likes of man or horse, neither one. I ain’t gonna waste the life of one of my men to help your sorry white asses from here on out. Come morning—you won’t have to worry none ’bout Hezekiah Christmas and his
mansos.”

Smith dragged the back of a hand beneath his nose in a gesture of real disdain. “Make sure you ain’t here come sunrise.” With that said, he returned to the other fire where he stood with his back to Williams and the rest.

“I go bed down out there with my men,” Christmas quietly told Titus.

“You’re welcome to sleep here with us—”

“No, we ain’t welcome here with any of you,” Hezekiah interrupted, beginning to step away.

Bass caught his bare, brown arm. “Promise me you won’t leave afore we said our farewells.”

Christmas’s eyes flicked aside to stare over Bass’s shoulder at the distant fire where Smith and Thompson stood among like-minded men. He finally gazed at Scratch. “Come morning, we’ll say our good-byes … one more time, Titus Bass.”

Scratch awoke with a start, twitching as the long arm locked around his neck. Sensing the pressure of the butcher’s knife’s sharp edge press against the bottom of his windpipe there just below the muscular arm that imprisoned his head.

“How’s it feel to know this gonna be the last breath you ever take on earth, Titus Bass?”

He stared up into the dimly lit face of Philip Thompson, watching the firelight and shadow flicker across the cheekbones, the cruel curve of the lips as the man gleefully sneered down at Bass.

“You’re a cockless woman, Thompson,” he cursed, raspy with the sharp pressure against his throat. “Sneaking up on a sleepin’ man so it can’t be no fair fight.”

“Gonna cut your throat,” Thompson promised. “Like shooting a mad wolf. Don’t have to be no fair fight to kill a mad wolf.”

When Scratch slowly started to raise his right hand, he felt Thompson shove down on his throat with the knife, sensed the sharp edge press into the skin.

“I’ll cut you afore you get that damned hand in the air,” Thompson vowed. “Just want you be lookin’ into my face when I split you open … so I can watch you die—”

A sudden gasp burst from Thompson’s lungs, his eyes grown as big as Mexican dollars. On instinct alone, Scratch instantly twisted into Thompson’s arm, raking the butcher knife across his throat as the big trapper went
taut above him. A second, putty-wet slap made Thompson jerk a second time, his mouth dropping open as his eyes started to roll back in their sockets.

Shoving his elbow into Thompson’s ribs, Bass felt the man’s rigid muscles suddenly sag. He shoved himself out from under the trapper and rolled onto his hip, gasping for breath and putting his fingertips against the damp flesh wound gaping across his throat.

Two short arrows protruded from Thompson’s back, halfway above midline, both buried deep.

The trapper sank to the side as his eyes went white.

Bass glanced at the fingers he took away from his neck wound, finding his flesh smeared with blood. Then in disbelief he looked over his shoulder, finding Hezekiah standing at the edge of that corona of firelight, a third arrow nocked in the bowstring, held at ready. Behind him stood an arch of more than a dozen of his warriors, the strings of their bows pulled taut to their cheekbones.