of the fires. As he wiped his knife off across the thigh of his buckskin legging, Bass turned to Elbridge. “You’ll play some more for us tonight?”
Gray asked, “You’re up to it, Jack?”
Hatcher replied, “Dog, if I ain’t. When ye’re done coffeeing yerself, Elbridge.”
Minutes later the two were at it again, the potent liquor continuing to flow, both company trappers and the free men frolicking with total abandon: dancing, singing, beating on the bottoms of kettles or banging two sticks together in time to the music They whirled in pairs or stomped about in a wild jig, knees pumping so high, they near grazed a man’s own chin.
The night had ripened and the moon had risen before Jack shushed them all.
“Gonna play ye one last song,” he told them as he stood wavering back and forth, clearly feeling his cups.
“It be a foot stomper?”
“No,” Hatcher growled with a snap.
Someone else yelled, “I wanna foot stomper!”
“Shuddup,” Caleb Wood grumped at the complainer.
“I allays play it,” Hatcher explained as the group fell quiet. “Allays …”
Solomon quickly explained to the others, “It’s his song, boys.”
Quietly, Gray asked, “You want me play with you?”
Jack nodded. “Sure do. Sounds purtier with ye siding for me, Elbridge.”
Hatcher led into the tune with a long, melancholy introduction. After a few bars Elbridge joined in, quietly, echoing Jack’s plaintive notes like the answer a man would hear to a jay’s call, the faint reply returning from the distance in those eastern woodlands where they had all been raised.
Closing his eyes as he dragged bow across strings, the tall, homely trapper began to sing to that hushed, respectful, firelit crowd.
I’m just a poor, wayfaring stranger
,
Traveling through this world of woe
.
Yet there’s no sickness, no toil, no danger
In that bright land to which I go
.
I’m going there to see my father
,
Who’s gone before me, no more to roam
.
I’m just going over Jordan
.
I’m only going over home
.
For a moment Titus tore his eyes from Hatcher’s expressive, lean, and melancholy face, glancing quickly about at the others, every last one of them spellbound by the sad, mournful strains of the two instruments, by the plaintive, feral call of Hatcher’s voice as he climbed atop each new note.
I
know dark clouds will gather round me
,
I know my way is rough and steep
.
Yet beautiful fields lie just before me
,
Where God’s redeemed their vigils keep
.
I’m going there to see my mother
,
She said she’d meet me when I come
.
I’m just going over Jordan
.
I’m only going over home
.
One by one the ghostly wisps of people from his past slipped through his mind as Jack and Elbridge weaved their magic spell in that firelit darkness. A father and mother left behind in Kentucky what seemed a lifetime ago. Good men like Ebenezer Zane and Isaac Washburn, dead well before their time. Billy and Silas, and even Bud Tuttle too—those three who had come into Bass’s life, then gone to their downriver deaths.
Death so sudden in this wilderness. A man’s end come so in the blink of an eye on this unspeakable frontier. Every day was to be savored and cherished and fiercely embraced for all it was worth—a fact that every last one of these few gathered at the fire understood, knowing theirs would not be a Christian burial. No, none of these was the sort of man forever to lie at rest beneath some carved stone marker where family and friends could come to visit. Instead, theirs would be anonymous graves, an unheralded passing … their only memorial the glory of their having lived out their roster of days in the utter ecstasy of freedom.
I’ll soon be free of every trial
,
My body will sleep in the churchyard
.
I’ll drop the cross of self-denial
,
And enter on my great reward
.
I’m going there to see my brothers
,
Who’ve gone before me one by one
.
I’m just going over Jordan
.
I’m only going over home
.
To die Where the
Gray asked, “You’re up to it, Jack?”
Hatcher replied, “Dog, if I ain’t. When ye’re done coffeeing yerself, Elbridge.”
Minutes later the two were at it again, the potent liquor continuing to flow, both company trappers and the free men frolicking with total abandon: dancing, singing, beating on the bottoms of kettles or banging two sticks together in time to the music They whirled in pairs or stomped about in a wild jig, knees pumping so high, they near grazed a man’s own chin.
The night had ripened and the moon had risen before Jack shushed them all.
“Gonna play ye one last song,” he told them as he stood wavering back and forth, clearly feeling his cups.
“It be a foot stomper?”
“No,” Hatcher growled with a snap.
Someone else yelled, “I wanna foot stomper!”
“Shuddup,” Caleb Wood grumped at the complainer.
“I allays play it,” Hatcher explained as the group fell quiet. “Allays …”
Solomon quickly explained to the others, “It’s his song, boys.”
Quietly, Gray asked, “You want me play with you?”
Jack nodded. “Sure do. Sounds purtier with ye siding for me, Elbridge.”
Hatcher led into the tune with a long, melancholy introduction. After a few bars Elbridge joined in, quietly, echoing Jack’s plaintive notes like the answer a man would hear to a jay’s call, the faint reply returning from the distance in those eastern woodlands where they had all been raised.
Closing his eyes as he dragged bow across strings, the tall, homely trapper began to sing to that hushed, respectful, firelit crowd.
I’m just a poor, wayfaring stranger
,
Traveling through this world of woe
.
Yet there’s no sickness, no toil, no danger
In that bright land to which I go
.
I’m going there to see my father
,
Who’s gone before me, no more to roam
.
I’m just going over Jordan
.
I’m only going over home
.
For a moment Titus tore his eyes from Hatcher’s expressive, lean, and melancholy face, glancing quickly about at the others, every last one of them spellbound by the sad, mournful strains of the two instruments, by the plaintive, feral call of Hatcher’s voice as he climbed atop each new note.
I
know dark clouds will gather round me
,
I know my way is rough and steep
.
Yet beautiful fields lie just before me
,
Where God’s redeemed their vigils keep
.
I’m going there to see my mother
,
She said she’d meet me when I come
.
I’m just going over Jordan
.
I’m only going over home
.
One by one the ghostly wisps of people from his past slipped through his mind as Jack and Elbridge weaved their magic spell in that firelit darkness. A father and mother left behind in Kentucky what seemed a lifetime ago. Good men like Ebenezer Zane and Isaac Washburn, dead well before their time. Billy and Silas, and even Bud Tuttle too—those three who had come into Bass’s life, then gone to their downriver deaths.
Death so sudden in this wilderness. A man’s end come so in the blink of an eye on this unspeakable frontier. Every day was to be savored and cherished and fiercely embraced for all it was worth—a fact that every last one of these few gathered at the fire understood, knowing theirs would not be a Christian burial. No, none of these was the sort of man forever to lie at rest beneath some carved stone marker where family and friends could come to visit. Instead, theirs would be anonymous graves, an unheralded passing … their only memorial the glory of their having lived out their roster of days in the utter ecstasy of freedom.
I’ll soon be free of every trial
,
My body will sleep in the churchyard
.
I’ll drop the cross of self-denial
,
And enter on my great reward
.
I’m going there to see my brothers
,
Who’ve gone before me one by one
.
I’m just going over Jordan
.
I’m only going over home
.
To die Where the
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