Free Crack in the Sky by Terry C. Johnston Page A

with the company?”
    “Hell, no,” Hatcher spat.
    “You ain’t American Fur neither?”
    Jack roared with laughter, dropping his head back and letting go at the sky. “Wouldn’t take orders from Pilcher if’n he was the last outfit in the mountains!”
    “We’re free men,” Solomon explained, slapping John Rowland on the back. “And we don’t owe no man our allegiance.”
    “November, it were, when they come early with supplies,” Porter started, apology in his voice and eyes. “Damn, I reckon I know just how you boys feel—no way to hear word they brung out our necessaries early. We wasn’t in winter camp yet ourselves.”
    Two summers, come and gone, and still no rendezvous for him. Bass heaved a mighty sigh of disappointment, “’Thout no trader, not gonna be no ronnyvoo now.”
    “Just what you boys come here to do if not for ronnyvoo?” Kinkead demanded.
    “Not all the brigades got ’em provisions back to winter,” Porter stated. Then he threw a thumb back in thedirection of their camp. “Our bunch didn’t get us a chance to take on supplies with the rest in the spring.”
    Now Hatcher’s face was growing crimson. Gritting his teeth, he growled, “Winter and spring … and now it’s the goddamned summer! So ye’re telling us there ain’t gonna be no trade goods come to ronnyvoo?”
    “Ashley ain’t figgering to be out his own self,” Porter explained as more of his bunch came up to stand nearby in the bright midsummer sun among Hatcher’s men.
    “Each one of the big brigades we still ’spect to come in all got ’em supplies they can trade off to you fellers for your skins, I s’pose,” a new and taller man declared, coming to a halt at Porter’s shoulder. “What outfit you men with?”
    “Like we just told him—we ain’t with no outfit,” Scratch declared, surprised to discover just how proud that made him to state it so unequivocally. “We are an outfit.”
    “This bunch is on its own hook,” Caleb Wood emphasized.
    “Thort you might be some of American Fur coming in,” the second man said. “They been dogging near every one of our brigades since last summer.”
    “This here’s Mad Jack Hatcher,” Scratch exclaimed proudly, sweeping an extended arm toward their leader. “He’s the one what heads this outfit of free mountaineers.”
    “Hatcher, is it?” Nathan Porter asked, extending his hand to Jack. “From the sounds of it, you got a passel of furs to trade.”
    “We got plenty of plew,” Hatcher agreed as they shook. “But where’s my men to find something to trade them furs for?”
    The taller of the company men said, “Just as soon’s the rest of the brigades ride in, we’ll start the trading.”
    “At mountain prices, I’ll lay!” Scratch snarled.
    Porter nodded. “After all, this here’s the mountains—”
    “Wagh!” Hatcher snorted with the guttural roar of the grizzly boar. “Mountain prices, he said, boys!”
    “Get ready to get yourselves honey-fuggled by themcompany booshways!” Caleb Wood cried as he pounded a hand on Porter’s back, both of them laughing easily.
    But the second man was clearly uncomfortable as Hatcher’s men guffawed along with many of the company men. “Mountain prices is what we all take in exchange. Ain’t no man better’n any other.”
    “No, I savvy you’re right there,” Scratch said as he stepped up before the tall trapper. “But just as long as we get what’s fair for our plew here in the mountains, a man don’t mind paying mountain prices for his necessaries.”
    “Hold on!” Rowland jumped forward, his face drawn and gray with concern. “Y-you mean … if’n there ain’t gonna be no trader come out—there ain’t gonna be no whiskey?”
    “No whiskey!” shrieked Rufus Graham.
    Now it was Porter’s turn to roar with laughter. “Ain’t got enough to float a bullboat back to St. Louie, boys … but we have us enough to wash the dust out’n your gullet!”
    “Whooo-haw!” Bass