Free Buffalo Palace by Terry C. Johnston

was just the advance of a hull big outfit.”
    “So they skedaddled.”
    Titus asked, “Where they go?”
    Clayton shrugged. “Who knows? Last we saw of ’em they was heading west toward the bend. Ain’t none of my concern now.”
    Bass gazed around the small, low-roofed room again, then asked, “They take anything you know of?”
    “Not the way they was packing up in a hurry under our eyes,” Lancaster said. “For sure they was a snakey-looking lot—the sort what’d trade whiskey with the Injuns and be slick-handed at it too.”
    As the first drops of rain hit the plank and sod roof overhead, Bass looked at the sergeant, asking, “You hear tell of anyone trading whiskey with them Pawnee up on the Platte?”
    Shaking his head, Clayton said, “Not lately. Them soldiers quartered up at Atkinson see to it none of that slips by ’em.”
    “Whiskey makes an Injun mean,” Culpepper instructed as if he were spouting gospel.
    “You seen Injuns before, ain’t you?” the sergeant asked of Bass.
    “I seen my share of Chickasaw … years ago now.”
    “No,” Lancaster joined in. “Did you ever see any of these Injuns here abouts?”
    “River Injuns,” Culpepper commented with self-satisfaction. “The ones what’re still wild.”
    “I seen a few come through St. Lou,” Bass admitted. “But I s’pose I ain’t seen a real
wild
Injun in many a year.”
    The wind gusted, rain battering against the small mullioned panes of glass on the two windows that looked out on the compound, where a torch sputtered in the sudden downpour. Titus got to his feet and left the warm corona near the fireplace to go to the door. He opened it and stared out at the heavy rain drowning the countryside as the torch outside flickered, then hissed—snuffed out and throwing the stockade’s compound into utter blackness. It sent a chill down his spine like a drop of January ice water.
    “Close that son of a bitch,” Culpepper ordered. “Damn, but you let in all that cold so to make my bones ache.”
    Slowly shoving the iron-hinged door back into its jamb, Bass returned to the half-log benches, where he rejoined the others.
    After a long period of silence as the sergeant continued to stare at the flames, Clayton finally asked, “What you figure to see out yonder to the west what’s so all-fired important?”
    “First off—I want to see me some buffalo.”
    “Buffalo?” Culpepper exclaimed.
    “That’s right. I been hankering on seeing them big beasts for about as long as I can remember.”
    The sergeant prodded for more. “’Sides the buffalo, what else?”
    “Them mountains,” Bass added. “I’ve heard me stories—”
    “Me too,” Culpepper interrupted enthusiastically. “The way some fellas talk about them mountains being so this and so that, why—I figure what with all that unlordly talk, them fellers is full of shit right up to the bung!”
    “I knowed me one what ought to know,” Titus explained. “He was a fur trapper in that upcountry—on the likes of the Bighorn and the Yallerstone.”
    “Bighorn,” Clayton repeated wistfully. “Yallerstone too?”
    “So what’d he have to say for hisself?” Culpepper demanded.
    “Yeah,” Lancaster joined in, “what’d he tell you ’bout that country?”
    “I figure them mountains gonna be something for a man to see.”
    Lancaster leaned forward now, elbows on his knees. “Ain’t you seen mountains before, Bass?”
    “If what Washburn tol’t me was the true: then all the mountains I’ve seen till now back east be nothing but foothills to them what lay out yonder.”
    “Where you’re dead set on going,” Clayton observed solemnly.
    Titus finally owned up, “I don’t figure I can rest till I do.”
    A doubtful Lancaster prodded, “Once you do, what then?”
    “If’n I like ’em—I plan to stay on.”
    “Doin’ what?” Culpepper asked.
    “Trapping beaver.”
    “So you’re for sure a fur man, are you?” Clayton inquired. “We hear most of