Read Online Ride the Moon Down by Terry C. Johnston - Free Book Online

cool shelter of the cottonwoods along Ham’s Fork to watch the approach of those eighteen Frenchmen and half-breeds moseying unhurriedly behind Thomas McKay and Jarrell Thornbrugh. The seething orb had just emerged from the ridges to the east, but already the motionless air felt stifling.
    “Not a good day for the trail!” Titus called out as the ragged column approached.
    “We better get out while we still have some fat on our bones!” Thornbrugh roared, and brought his tall horse to a halt. He swiped a hand down his sweaty face. “Not one of us used to this bloody heat, Scratch.”
    “Figure we can stay and sweat in the shade,” McKay declared, “or we can start back to our country—”
    “Where it’s cooler,” Thornbrugh interrupted, “and green too!”
    For a moment Bass regarded the austere beauty of the burnt-sienna bluffs that rimmed the valley, shoved up like massive, mighty shoulders against the pale summer-blue of the morning sky. “Green there all the time, ain’t it?”
    “Winter or summer,” McKay agreed.
    “You can keep it,” he told them. “I’ll stay on here where there’s real seasons. Much as I hate the summers—I’d rather have me my seasons.”
    “The snows don’t get deep in Oregon country,” Thornbrugh chided as he started to rock out of the saddle.“And the snows don’t stay near as long as they do in your mountains.”
    “You ain’t got me to worry about moving in with you, Jarrell!”
    “If not, will we see you next rendezvous?”
    He watched the Englishman step up before him. “’Less I’ve gone under—that’s for sartin.”
    “You have all you’ll need for another year, my friend?”
    “Believe I do.”
    “Powder and lead—”
    “Yep.”
    “Blankets and beads?”
    “Yes, Jarrell,” he answered with a smile. “Even got some girlews and geegaws off Wyeth in my trading.”
    “That Yank’s sure to trouble the Company,” McKay snarled. “I just know it, Jarrell.”
    Thornbrugh turned back to Bass. “You’ll watch what you got left for hair?”
    “I got me others to watch over now,” Scratch replied.
    “They’re beauties, let me tell you,” the tall man exclaimed with admiration. “Good thing the wee one takes after her mother—gorgeous as she is.”
    “Wouldn’t do to have a sweet babe like that take after her mud-ugly ol’ man, would it?”
    And then they stood there, motionless a long moment longer, staring at one another, growing in the unease of knowing the time had come once again.
    “I said my fare-thees to you twice’t a’fore, Jarrell,” Bass stabbed the silence between them as the men sweated and the horses stamped in a semicircle around the two of them.
    “What’s that you’re trying to say?”
    “That this may be a fare-thee too, but it’s also a promise to cross your tracks again.”
    Titus held out his hand between them, but Thornbrugh shoved it aside roughly and seized the American in both of his massive arms, pulling the smaller, thinner man into a ferocious embrace. At that very moment Scratch was grateful Jarrell nearly squeezed the breath out of hisbody. For that moment Thornbrugh choked off the sob that threatened to overwhelm Titus.
    When the big Englishman pulled back, their arms outstretched between them, Bass blinked several times, squinting as if troubled with the intense light. But it was the fire of those sudden tears that stung his eyes now.
    Thornbrugh inched back another step. “I’ll hold you to that promise, Titus Bass—true lord of this great wilderness! If God doesn’t take me, and the good Doctor so chooses, I’ll be back here to your rendezvous next year.”
    “I’ll be here, friend. Lay your set to that.” And he studied the way the huge man moved as Thornbrugh turned and stepped back to his horse, taking his reins from McKay, then rose to the saddle.
    “Give my respects to the Doctor.”
    “I will do that,” Thornbrugh agreed as he urged his horse away slowly.
    “He’s a good man …