Death Rattle by Terry C. Johnston Page B

rain!”
    “Poor Scratch.” Mitchell pounded a hand on Titus’s back. “You was so drunk you didn’t know any better—drownding our friend the way you done.”
    They had him worried. Especially now that his head had grown so fuzzy. “M-maybe I ought’n go see to him just so I can be—”
    Bass had taken a handful of steps before Craig snagged Scratch’s arm and spun him around. “Hold on there. Way you’re walking—you ain’t fit to go off to check on no one.”
    “Someone ought’n go see—”
    “Maybe you’re right,” Sinclair agreed. “Mitchell, youor one of the others—go see to Ol’ Bill. See if he’s breathing yet.”
    Mitchell turned and nodded to one of the other trappers, a half-breed Frenchie named Toussaint Marechal, and together they stepped through the low doorway into the bright sun, disappearing across the fort compound.
    Suddenly Craig leaped to the open door and shouted after them, “If’n you wake Solitaire—be sure you tell him we’re fixing to pull Scratch’s tooth. I’ll bet that ol’ preacher’d wanna be here to see this!”
    “Ain’t none of you gonna pull my tooth!” Bass protested. “Gonna do just fine by my own self.”
    “Maybeso,” Craig replied. “We’ll see how steady your own hands are … ’cause it’s for sure you’re ol’ legs ain’t!”
    “What you figger’m I gonna use to pull it?” Scratch asked, giving Craig a playful shove as he turned back to Sinclair.
    “Dunno for sure. Mitchell’s the one said he pulled his own tooth,” the trader declared, then looked at Craig. “What’d he use?”
    “Had him some pinchers in his shooting pouch,” Craig explained helping steady Bass. “What he uses to pull his ramrod out when he’s pulling a dry ball or an old load.”
    “M-makes sense.” And Scratch nodded, inching away from Craig. “I got me my own ball puller I can go get.”
    A suspicious Craig quickly scooted over to block his way. “You wasn’t thinking of running off, was you?”
    Bass leaned back against the counter noisily, sensing for the first time just how thick his tongue had grown. “Naw. Need to get my ball puller so I can be a tooth puller, s’all.”
    “Thought you was sneaking off—”
    Lunging out, Bass seized Craig by the front of his greasy cloth shirt with his right hand. “You figger me for being feared of pulling my own tooth, don’cha?”
    “Dunno if you are or not—”
    Shaking the younger trapper, Bass growled, “How’bout we let you start this here fandango by yanking out one of your own goddamn teeth.”
    Seizing Bass’s wrist in both his hands, Craig attempted to wrench the older man’s grip from his shirt. “Y-you gone stupid on whiskey!”
    “Don’t you ever again let me hear you say to my face or behind my back that you think I’m feared of something,” Scratch bellowed inches from Craig’s face. “Maybeso, you was a braver man than me a few years ago when we was cornered inside Robidoux’s post by Thompson’s bunch.”
    The trapper ruminated on that a moment, then released his hold on Bass’s wrist. “Yeah, I remember. You talked down them Yutas had us surrounded.” With a sigh, Craig grudgingly admitted, “Likely you saved our hair that day.”
    Dropping his hand from Craig’s shirt, Titus mumbled, “You really ain’t a bad sort, Billy. Only want you to stay away from my damn mouth.”
    Mitchell and Marechal shuffled back in the door, the cool of the rain-cleansed morning wafting into the trading room with them.
    “Bill’s gonna be sleeping for some time to come,” Mitchell announced.
    Pulling the cup of whiskey from his lips, Bass slurred, “He ain’t drowned, is he?”
    “Not by rain, he ain’t,” Mitchell replied. “But he’s been damn near drowned with whiskey that he ain’t gonna be here to watch you pull your tooth neither.” The younger man yanked up the flap to his shooting pouch and pulled out the small tool. “Here you go, Scratch. Have at your