Wind Walker (18 page)

“See that smoke yonder?” Titus asked his son as the two of them reined up with Shad Sweete, at the breast of a low ridge.

“Top of the trees?”

“Yep. What smoke you make it out to be?”

The youngster was thoughtful a moment. “Not grass, Popo. Fire smoke.”

“Right again, boy. Bet we’ll spot horses, maybe some lodges by the time we cover ’nother hour or so.”

“How long you figger it from here?” Shad squinted into the late spring sunlight.

“I callate we’ll be drinking from Bridger’s jug afore the sun goes down.”

From the mouth of Ham’s Fork a day ago they had followed Black’s Fork as it looped around and made for the southwest. Now they had entered a broad valley where this tributary of the Green River was splintered into numerous small creeks with springtime’s mountain runoff, all of which relentlessly cut itself through the fertile, verdant meadows to form a series of narrow islands carpeted with tall grass. Tall, old cottonwoods stood stately on the banks of every rivulet, heads and shoulders above younger saplings. Willow, alder, and prairie ash cloaked the streams.

“Gabe picked him a sure ’nough good spot,” Sweete marveled as they continued toward the smoke. “How you figger the winters in this country?”

“You forgot, Shadrach?” Titus snorted. “The whole blamed valley of the Green damned well gotta be about the
coldest place in the mountains. Chills my bones just thinking ’bout it.”

“Then why’d Gabe an’ Vaskiss raise their post here?”

With a shrug, Scratch turned in the saddle and pointed to the northeast. “The Southern Pass—it’s off that way, back to Fort John and the road from the settlements. An’ Fort Hall, it’s off yonder in that direction.”

Sweete asked impatiently, “Which means?”

“Which means Bridger’s post is right on this here road what takes folks on to Oregon.”

“Lookit all the grass there is for stock, right close,” Sweete added.

“Allays good to have plenty of grass—you never know who’s gonna be droppin’ in to pay their respects,” Titus said with a grin and a wink. “Lookee there through the trees.”

“More smoke. You figger that for Gabe’s post?”

Bass nodded. “Hell if it don’t look like peeled timbers to me!”

Quickly turning in their saddles, both men tore their hats from their heads and signaled back to their wives. Then Scratch said to Flea, “We set off an’ your horses get to running, just let ’em go an’ stay with them. Only thing to watch for: Don’t let ’em find no prairie-dog town, or stumble getting down to a crik bottom, son.”

The boy’s face flushed with excitement. “Flea go with you?”

He considered it a brief moment, then grinned hugely. “Sure as shootin’ you can come along, boy! Stay hard on my tail an’ you’ll see how free men like Shad an’ your pa rode into ronnyvoo long summers ago—once upon a glory time! Whoooo-eee!”

Both Sweete and Flea were caught unawares with the sudden explosiveness of the old man’s untamed yelp and his burst into motion. But those two rangy dogs were ready. In an instant they were lunging along beside the old trapper’s horse. No more than a heartbeat behind him came his son and an old friend, hammering heels into their horses, a long and shrill cry freeing itself from their throats as they
followed Titus through the last fringe of cottonwoods, clattered across another narrow rivulet of Black’s Fork, then exploded up the last low riverbank that swept them in a gentle arc toward that corner of the stockade they could spy through the last intervening stand of trees.

Suddenly in full view were a half dozen small herds of horses, and even a few horned cattle too.

Damn! Titus hadn’t seen beeves since trader Sublette brought a milk cow to ronnyvoo long summers gone now.

And far beyond the timbered walls stood more than thirty buffalo-hide lodges, where brown-skinned women worked over outdoor fires and naked children chased one another in their games. Bridger had him an outright settlement of his own!

In moments it became clear there were actually two stockades, one a bit larger than the other, but sharing a length of one timbered wall in common. The gates of both were visible to the riders as they came tearing in from the north, finally slowing their heaving horses to a lope on that broad flat … when a lone figure stepped into sight from one of the open gates, the lowering sun at his back. He tore the flat-brimmed, low-crowned hat from his head and O’ed up his mouth for a greeting.

“What’s your lather for, boys? Can’t be no redskins lickin’ it after you—”

The instant his voice melted away in midsentence, the man slowly lowered his hat to his side and began to wag his head, a huge smile growing on his face. “As I live an’ breathe … if’n you ain’t a pair for these sore eyes!”

“Gabe!” Shad shrieked as he bounded off his horse and hit the ground at a trot to seize the shorter man in his big arms while Ghost and Digger bounded around the two like pups.

“Lordy!” Bridger gasped after several moments. “C-come peel this here b’ar off me, Scratch!”

Reluctantly Shad released the trader and lowered Bridger to the ground once more as Titus legged out of his saddle and strode over to the pair.

“Just look at you!” Bridger exclaimed to Sweete. Then he turned to Bass to ask, “He’s growed some since I last saw him. Don’cha think he’s growed some?”

“I’ll allow I was still a pup when we first throwed in with the general,
^*
Gabe,” Sweete said as he threw an arm back over Bridger’s shoulder, “but I ain’t growed outta a pair o’ mokersons in many a winter!”

When Bridger stepped toward him with his arms opened, Bass gave the trader a fond embrace. “Damn, but it shines to see you, Gabe!”

“How come you never rode down from Crow country to see me afore now?”

“Ain’t been anywhere close to the Green in more summers than I care to count,” Scratch explained. “Last time it was … I think I rode through here with Ol’ Solitaire on our way south.”

“South? Makin’ to Robidoux’s post?”

“Gone farther, we did—all the way to Californy for some Mexican horses.”

Bridger snorted, slapped his knee with his hat before he repositioned it on his head. “Was you in that bunch that throwed Peg-Leg out in the desert?”
^*

“Yep. I figger Solitaire gave him better’n a oily-tongued backstabber deserved,” Scratch replied. “You ever hear what ever come of him?”

“Last I heard tell, he’s still raising hell and putting a chunk under it too!” Bridger declared. “Someone said he aims to make California his own. From what folks has told me recent, American soldiers gone down an’ took Santa Fe from the Mexicans afore they marched out to do the same in California. So, Peg-Leg figgers to make something outta himself out there.”

“Just the place for his kind, out there,” Bass grumbled sourly. “Keep Peg-Leg busy so’s he won’t come back to these here mountains to make trouble for the rest of us.”

Bridger wheeled on Sweete. “How long you coons fixin’ to stay?”

Shad looked at Titus with a shrug. “We ain’t never thought ’bout it.”

But Bass scratched at his chin reflectively and said, “Lemme see now. Ain’t long afore it turns summer, when plews ain’t worth the sweat off your ass. An’ since there ain’t gonna be no ronnyvoo to ride off to this year, so … I figger next best place for the season is Bridger’s post.”

“You mean that?” the trader asked. “The two of you stay through the summer?”

“Don’t see a reason why we can’t—do you, Shadrach?”

Sweete threw a big arm over Bridger’s shoulder. “We’re movin’ in, Gabe!”

For a moment there, the trader’s tongue was tied, until he blinked his eyes and finally confessed, “Gotta tell you both, that’s some good news to this here child. Past winter was hard on me. I l-lost my Cora.”

Bass took a step forward and laid his hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Your wife?”

“She died givin’ birth to our li’l Josephine last autumn,” he explained. “Josie’s our third.”

“That mean you’re raising all three of ’em by yourself?” Sweete asked with concern.

“Sometime back I sent Mary Ann off to Doc Whitman’s mission up in Cayuse country!” Bridger declared proudly. “She’s goin’ to school with Joe Meek’s girl. But my boy, Felix, he’s been here with me, an’ the baby too. So it’ll be some punkins to have your women around to help out. Lately I’ve found there’s a lot a man ain’t really the best at.”

Smiling with admiration for his old friend, Titus said, “I know a couple o’ gals gonna be real happy to get their hands on that baby girl of yours, Gabe!”

Bridger looped an arm around both of them as his attention was held by the young boy leading his horse toward
them. “Times’ll shine, boys. Days gonna get real busy, here on out. I can use a hand from you both when them emigrants show their faces on the horizon.”

“Man just as soon stay busy as loaf in the shade, Jim,” Titus said.

“Every train bound for Oregon gonna come by here,” Bridger explained. “They’ll need fixin’s, trade off horses or a team of mules, maybeso dicker off some of their oxen too afore they push on for Hallee up on the Snake. Likely, most’ll need some repair work on their wagons—”

“Blacksmithin’?” Titus asked, the first twinge of excitement squirting through him.

“Yepper. Size down tires with this dry air out here, repair yokes and tongues and even boxes too,” Jim said. “You know anythin’ ’bout smithing, Titus Bass?”

“Hell, I worked Hysham Troost’s forge in St. Louie for a number o’ years afore I come west in twenty-five,” he announced proudly.

Bridger blinked in disbelief. “Hysham Troost teached you smithing?”

Bass nodded.

“Glorreee! That’s good enough for any man!” Bridger exclaimed. “You’ll sure as hell do, Scratch! My forge needs fixin’ up—some corncracker burnt half of it down late last summer afore we could put out the fire … but we’ll work out some pay for what you do to help around here an’ what business you scare up, both of you niggers.”

Fumble-footed, Sweete asked, “What you rigger I can do, Gabe?”

“No shortage of work to be done ’round here, Shadrach. But”—and he paused reflectively—“what I need most is someone smart to oversee my ferry on the Green.”

“Your ferry?”

“You didn’t see my ferry up there on the Green River when you come over the pass an’ down the Sandy?”

“Nope. We rode south of there.”

“Where from?”

“Bad doin’s at Fort John on the Platte,” Titus declared. “Them Frenchies tried to make off with my daughter.”

“Shit,” Bridger grumbled sympathetically. “They can all go to hell, them parley-voos! Glad I’m shet of American Fur and all o’ Chouteau’s Frenchies for good! So, tell me how you two come over from Fort John.”

Titus scratched the back of his neck and said, “We come south of the Black Hills, where the weather’d blowed the land clear.”

“You come through the Red Desert?”

“Yep,” Shad said. “It was tough doin’s, but we finally hit the headwaters of Bitter Creek, and follered it down to the Green. Come across the Seedskeedee near the mouth of Black’s.”

“I’ll be gone to hell,” Bridger exclaimed. “I ain’t been through that country since back to Ashley’s day—when we come north through that country to strike the Green. Damn, but I’ll bet that way’d cut a passel o’ few days off a trip between here an’ the North Platte.”

“Some of it’s rough,” Titus said, “but the winds keep the snow blowed out most of the time, I’d reckon.”

“Who’s this boy you got along?” Bridger asked as the lean, copper-skinned youngster came up to a stop near the three men, leading his horse by a single rein. “He yours, Shadrach?”

“Nawww, he’s Scratch’s boy.”

Bass said, “Flea, shake hands with the man. He’s a ol’t friend of your pa’s. A good, ol’t friend.”

“Flea is my name,” the youngster said a bit nervously, holding out his hand to the trader.

“Jim Bridger is mine, Flea.”

“Bri-ger,” he repeated thoughtfully.

“Call me Jim,” Gabe replied. “How old’s the lad?”

“He’ll be eleven come winter.”

Jim turned back to the boy. “Didn’t I see you wrangling them horses your pa brung in?”

Flea nodded without speaking a word.

“He’s got some strong medicine, Gabe,” Titus declared, bursting with pride. “The boy’s damn good with the four-leggeds.”

Bridger laid a hand on Flea’s shoulder. “If your pa don’t mind, I’m sure we can find some work for you to do around here this summer too.”

“Wor-work?” and his big eyes flicked back and forth between his father and Bridger.

Titus chuckled. “I don’t think he knows what that word means, Jim.”

“I figger you for a lad who’d like to tend to our horses,” Bridger explained. “Ride ’em, brush ’em, see to the mares when they drop their foals?”

Flea glanced quickly at his father, then nodded to the trader. “I try do good for you, Jim.”

Squinting into the bright sunlight, Bridger gazed over his friends’ shoulders and asked, “So any of them women and young’uns comin’ our way really yours, Shad? Or they all belong to that ol’ bull named Titus Bass?”