Ride the Moon Down by Terry C. Johnston

themselves in a thick coat of green come spring’s torrents.
    How much he had been looking forward to their return to Absaroka.
    All the memories flooded together as they crossed the Green and made for the southern end of the Wind River Mountains where they climbed up the west side of the southern pass and crossed over to the Sweetwater before striking due north for the Popo Agie, following it as they rose into the eastern slopes of the mountains.
    For several weeks they leisurely clung to the high country, working their way north by west through the ruggedWind River Range until they reached the country where the passes either carried them west to Davy Jackson’s Hole, or north into the forbidding fastness of the hulking Absaroka Range. Instead they turned southeast around the end of those mighty hills and made for the Owl Mountains.
    For another month he had them mosey north along the foothills of the Absaroka Range, stopping to camp for a night or two along every stream where they found the beaver active, at the edge of every flooded meadow where the flat-tails had erected their dams and lodges, felling their trees and raising their young.
    Before leaving camp for his traplines each morning, Bass freshly primed a pair of smoothbore fusils and their two extra rifles, along with a brace of pistols, leaving them propped here and there against their shelter, or astride beaver packs—somewhere easily within her reach. Besides those usual chores of tending to the baby’s needs, bringing in firewood, making repairs to moccasins and clothing, or preparing meals for her ravenous husband, Waits-by-the-Water again proved herself an invaluable camp keeper by expertly fleshing every beaver hide he dragged in, cleaning it of fat and excess connective tissue after Scratch pulled the heavy green hide off the carcass at streamside. Last fall in the Bayou Salade he had taught her how to lash the green hide inside a large willow hoop, threading a long rawhide whang round and round as she stretched the beaver skin to dry.
    At most camps they snuffed their fire by twilight and warily slept out the night in a darkness that made those autumn nights feel all the colder. As sociable as the horses were, as gregarious as was young Samantha—Bass figured it was nonetheless far better that he picket each animal in a separate place from dusk’s deepening till dawn’s first light. If some thieving redskins happened to stumble across them, far better was it to lose one or two than to have the whole bunch driven off together. Better to count those horses’ ribs than to count their tracks.
    As soon as Magpie was sleeping soundly on the far side of her mother, lying close at hand for those timeswhen the child awoke hungry during the night, and Waits-by-the-Water was nestled beneath their blankets, Titus always slipped quietly into the frosty darkness. One by one he made the rounds, checking on the horses, then the mule, before bringing the buffalo pony with the spotted rump right into camp. Dropping a loop of rawhide rope around its head, Scratch played out the rest of the rope as he settled back among the blankets and robes with his wife and child. After tucking the end of the rope securely beneath his belt, the trapper could finally close his eyes, assured that he would be jolted awake with the pony’s slightest tug on the rawhide rope as it grazed through the night.
    A man who wanted to keep what he had left of his hair, who wanted to protect his family, didn’t much worry about sleeping out his nights in peace. He could sleep the night through come next summer’s rendezvous, or come this winter with the Crow. No man long in tooth, be he white or red, ever let a little thing like some lost sleep nettle him.
    Better to awaken after a few hours of sleep in fits and starts than not awaken at all.
    If it wasn’t Magpie fussing with an empty belly, or Samantha snorting to announce she had just winded some nocturnal animal like a raccoon, skunk, or