Free Death Rattle by Terry C. Johnston

back against his saddle.
    “Last I see’d of you, Bill—was down to Taos,” Scratch remarked. “Become a trader your own self—growed wearisome of standing in freezin’ water up to your cock-bag.”
    Williams snorted with that. “Blazes, if nothin’ come of that endeavor! Packed up my plunder and hightailed it for the hills.” He sighed, stared at Bass a long time, then asked, “You ever run across that nigger what took your hair?”
    “I did, few years back,” he answered. “Fact be, I run onto him later on that spring after I first run onto you.” *
    Williams dug a louse out of his beard. “What ever come of it.”
    He turned and looked at Bill, a rueful smile comingacross his face. “You soft-brained idjit! Here I sit right afore you. What you think happed?”
    “Just callated there’d well be a dandy of a tale behin’t you cutting that red nigger’s trail,” Williams explained.
    Titus had settled the grounds, poured them each a cup, and settled back against his saddle with his feet to the fire when he next spoke, “I … set things right.”
    Williams studied him a moment, then seemed to realized he would get little else for the time being. “A good thing, when a man sets things right.”
    He sipped his coffee, then asked Williams, “You’re laying your sights west to find better trapping?”
    “Ain’t going west for beaver, Scratch.”
    For a moment Bass gazed at the small packs of beaver pelts William had pulled off the pack animals and flung to the ground earlier.
    “Gonna take your plews to John Bull at Fort Hall?”
    Bill shook his head emphatically. “I don’t figger to go nowhere near Hall.”
    “Maybeso you do your best to keep your goddamned meat-hole closed ’bout where you’re going and what you aim to do when you get there, because I didn’t up an’ tell you how I killed the nigger what scalped me, left him gutted for the magpies and crows to pick over?”
    With a shrug, Bill said, “Naw, I was just sitting here reckoning on if you’d be one to come with me.”
    “Come with? Where, goddammit?”
    “Down to Fort Winty,” * Williams explained. “Got plans to meet some fellas there.”
    “Who?”
    “Peg-Leg, Dick Owens, Silas Adair, and others.”
    “What you fixin’ to do, if I throw in with you?”
    “Beaver’s all but dead, Scratch. I don’t plan to curl up an’ die with it,” Williams growled sour as green rhubarb.
    “Where you lay your sights?”
    “I hear there’s money to be had in California.”
    “That’s a long ride just to find you some Mexicans.What can you do in California you can’t do down to Taos or Santy Fee?”
    Williams’s eyes shimmered bright as Mexican tinwork in the flickering firelight. “Ain’t what we’re gonna do, Titus Bass … it’s what we’re gonna bring back.” Then his whole face lit up with a merry smile. “Horses.”
    Taking a long sip at his coffee, Bass was surprised to sense a surge of unexpected excitement ignite within him. He had to admit it had been a long, long time since he had felt this particular tingle of unbounded adventure. Since he had felt this sort of keen, sharp-edged tang stirring deep in his very soul, sensed this craving to be gone to far valleys and new dangers.
    “You want me to go steal horses in California with your bunch?”
    Bill Williams nodded eagerly, rocking up on his knobby knees so he could lean close. “I’d ride anywhere if I had a man like you at my back, Titus Bass.”
    For a long moment Scratch stared at those flames licking along the split limbs in the fire pit, realizing the anticipation was licking its way through him in much the same way with its own undeniable passion.
    “Awright,” Bass finally relented with a rasp to his voice, his throat constricting with unbridled eagerness. “I’ll be at your back when we ride into California to steal a few Mexican horses.”
    “I ’spect I better tell you it ain’t gonna be stealing them horses that’s the mean trick,