Only The Strong Read online

  The bull straddled her. Out of the corner of her eye, Randa saw its gaze fixed intently on her. It sniffed her and pawed the ground. Its warm breath fanned her arm, her cheek. She was nose to nostrils with one of the most fearsome creatures on the continent, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming.

  “Don’t move!”

  Randa’s gaze darted to the man who had rushed up. She almost cried out his name in heartfelt relief.

  Nate King was big in his own right. Big and broad of shoulder, his muscular frame clothed in buckskins and moccasins. A powder horn and ammo pouch crisscrossed his chest. A possibles bag hung at his side. Twin flintlock pistols were wedged under his wide brown leather belt, and a bowie knife in a beaded sheath hung on his left hip. On his right hip was a tomahawk. In his hands, trained on the bull buffalo, was a Hawken rifle custom made for him by the famed brothers of that name in St. Louis. A beaver hat contained his black mane of hair, and a single white eagle feather hung from the back of his head.

  “Don’t move,” Nate cautioned a second time. “It’s only curious. If it were mad, you’d be dead by now.”

  The buffalo raised its shaggy head and stared at him. Nate fingered his Hawken but didn’t shoot. His wife came running to his side and wedged her rifle to her shoulder.

  “Don’t fire unless it charges, Winona.”

  Winona was a Shoshone. A fine doeskin dress, decorated with scores of blue beads, hung to below her knees. Like Nate, she had a powder horn, ammo pouch and hunting knife. Like Nate, she was armed with a brace of pistols and held a Hawken. And like her man, she showed no fear as she took deliberate aim.

  “If it charges, go for the lungs.”

  “I have killed buffalo before, Husband. You might recall—you were there when I shot some of them.”

  Nate had specified the lungs for a reason. Buffalo skulls were so thick that penetrating them to the brain was next to impossible. A heart or lung shot was best, and even then the lead ball must shear through thick layers of fat and muscle to reach the vitals. Next to grizzlies and gluttons, buffalo were about the hardest creatures to kill of any alive.

  Other figures came running: a black man almost as big as Nate, a woman as wide as she was tall, and a boy of fourteen. Samuel Worth; his wife, Emala; and their son, Chickory. All three stopped when Nate motioned.

  “Randa!” Emala cried.

  “Hush, woman!” Samuel Worth snapped. “Do you want to get our girl killed?”

  Chickory grabbed his father’s arm. “What do we do, Pa? What do we do?”

  “You do nothing,” Nate King said. “Stand still and keep quiet and maybe it will leave her be.”

  “Maybe?”

  The bull sniffed loudly at Randa’s face and neck. A drop of saliva fell on her cheek, and she quivered.

  “Stay still!” Nate stressed.

  Randa was trying, but her body wouldn’t stop trembling.

  Nate edged forward. The girl was doing her best but might give in to fear at any moment. He’d encountered buffs before, and nine times out of ten, when confronted by a human, they ran. It was the tenth time he had to worry about.

  The bull snorted. It stamped. Just when it seemed it would charge, it wheeled and crashed off through the undergrowth.

  “Praise the Lord!” Emala exclaimed.

  Nate was the first to reach Randa, and he helped her up. “Are you all right? Did it hurt you any?”

  Randa, trembling, sagged against him, her cheek on his broad chest. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Nate patted her shoulder. “There, there. You did fine. Exactly as you should have.”

  “I did?”

  Winona joined them. Only a few steps behind were Chickory, Samuel and Emala.

  Emala pried Randa from Nate and practically enfolded her daughter in her motherly bosom. “Lordy! Don’t scare us like that, child. I was prayin’ like I’ve never prayed. That awful creature, with all that hair and those horns! Why the Good Lord made such a thing, only the Good Lord knows.”

  Samuel offered his calloused hand to Nate. “I’m sorry you have to keep savin’ us, Mr. King. I thank you again.”

  Nate shook Samuel’s hand heartily. He liked the Worths, liked them a lot. It was partly why he agreed to guide them to the Rockies. The other part had to do with the slaver hunters who had been after them. Two-legged coyotes who hurt Winona when she tried to help the Worths. No one hurt Nate’s wife and got away with it. Ever.

  Chickory was staring after the buffalo. “Did you see how big that thing was? And you say there’s millions of them? How can that be? Are they like rabbits, always havin’ young?”

  Nate explained, “The cows usually only have one calf at a time. I reckon there are so many because they can live twenty-five years or better, and there’s not much that can kill them except man.” Wolves weeded out the old and the sick, but they were relatively few.

  “It’s the Almighty’s doin’,” Emala declared. “His hand is over this land. It’s the Garden of Eden all over again.”

  Nate read the Bible often. He loved to read. In their cabin was an entire shelf lined with books, his most prized possessions. “The Garden of Eden had the Tree of Life and every animal under the sun.”

  Emala brightened. “You know your Scripture.”

  “When my children were little, I read passages to them every night.”

  “So did I. I admire that in a man,” Emala said with a pointed look at her husband. “Ask my family and they’ll tell you that I’m the God-fearin’est female who ever lived.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Chickory said.

  “Amen, Son,” Samuel threw in.

  Emala frowned. “You and me are havin’ words tonight when we’re alone.”

  “What are you mad about now?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Then why do you look fit to kick me?”

  Nate couldn’t get over how much they squabbled. Emala was particular about things, and when they weren’t done to suit her, she let whomever displeased her know it. It made him appreciate Winona all the more. Oh, she lit into him now and again and nagged him on occasion, but mostly she let him do as he felt best without constantly criticizing him.

  Randa clasped Nate’s hand. “You sure were wonderful, Mr. King.”

  “I hardly did anything,” Nate assured her, and was puzzled when his wife grinned.

  “You stood up to that buffalo as bold as could be.” Randa heaped on the praise. “The same as when you helped us against those slave hunters.”

  “A man does what he has to.” Nate didn’t know what else to say. He tried to pull his hand back but she held on.

  “You killed three of them to save us,” Randa gushed. “You were”—she stopped, searching for the right word—“magnificent.”

  Emala snatched her daughter’s wrist. “Come on, girl.” She nearly yanked Randa off her feet. “Let’s get you back to the fire, where it’s safe.”

  Nate watched them walk off and became aware that his wife was staring at him and still grinning. “What?”

  “My, you are a handsome devil,” Winona said in her flawless English. She had a talent for learning languages that far surpassed his own.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You do not see it, and it is right in front of your face.”

  “What?”

  “Is that the only word you know today?” Winona made a show of trying to remember something. “Now, let me see. What is it our daughter-in-law likes to say about men? Oh, yes.” She paused. “As blind as bats and as dumb as tree stumps.” She laughed gaily.

  “Why is it,” Nate asked, “that women feel the need to talk rings around a man before they get to the point?”

  “My point, dear husband, is that sweet Randa is smitten. Ever since you saved them from those slave hunters, her eyes follow you everywhere. Surely you’ve noticed?”

  No, Nate hadn’t, and he decided to change the subject. “It’s too bad I didn’t kill all of them.”r />
  “Why? Do you think the two who got away will make more trouble for the Worths?”

  “I hope not. I hope they have the brains to leave well enough be. But Samuel told me there’s a bounty on their heads. Thousands of dollars. That pair might not give up.”

  “What will you do if they come after us?”

  “Need you ask?” Nate King said.

  Chapter Three

  Emala Worth would tell you she wasn’t the bravest of souls. Truth was, Emala was timid. She was scared of so many things, she had lost count. Spiders, snakes, mice, rats, mosquitoes, bees, wasps, lightning, big dogs, bulls and even cows. She was afraid of horses, too, although she was gradually getting over her fear of them after weeks of riding across the prairie.

  But one thing Emala couldn’t get over, one fear she couldn’t escape, was her dread of the wilderness. There was so much to be afraid of, it was as if the Good Lord deliberately put the wilderness there just to scare people to death. Bears, wolves, cougars, hostiles, you name it, the wild haunts crawled with them. And from what the Kings told her, the mountains weren’t any better.

  Buffalo were at the top of Emala’s to-be-afraid-of list. They were so big and so hairy, and those horns were like swords. It didn’t help that they had bad tempers. She couldn’t help comparing them to her husband, who was prone to lose his temper now and again.

  Emala’s heart had leaped into her throat at the sight of her precious daughter being menaced by that mean bull. Of all her many fears, her greatest was that she would lose one of her children. They were everything to her. It was partly out of love for Randa that Emala agreed to flee the plantation even though her heart wasn’t in it.

  Some folks would say she was crazy. They would say that being a slave was the worst thing you could be. But being a slave was all Emala ever knew. She was born into slavery, just as her mother before her. To her, their small shack and pitifully few possessions were as good as life got, and she never hankered after more.

  It helped that Emala had refuge in her faith. She believed in the Lord God Almighty. She’d read the Bible completely through and was proud of the feat. When her children were little, in the evenings she would read to them to instill her love of Scripture in them.

  Leaving her Bible behind when they fled had been the hardest thing Emala ever did. She missed it. She missed it terribly. And now, winding along the Platte River, she grew sad with regret. So sad, she didn’t notice when her horse acquired a shadow.

  “Is something the matter?”

  Emala gave a start. “Mr. King! You about scared me out of a year’s growth.”

  Nate was astride his big bay, his Hawken in the crook of his elbow. “You looked fit to cry.”

  “I am,” Emala confessed. She explained, ending with, “I can do without a lot of things, but I can’t do without my Scripture.”

  “Maybe I can help,” Nate offered. “Remember my little library I mentioned?”

  “I surely do.” Emala had always wanted to own more books but what little money she earned back on the plantation went for more important things.

  “I have a Bible. In fact, I have two. One was my mother’s. I brought it back with me from my last trip to New York City. The other one I bought in St. Louis. I had a third, a Bible that belonged to my Uncle Zeke, but I lost it when some men broke into our cabin.”

  “They destroyed your Bible?”

  “And all my other books. It took me a long time to replace them.”

  “Any man who would do that to the Word of the Lord should be burned at the stake.” Emala paused. “Your Uncle Zeke, you say? Isn’t he the one who brought you out here? He was goin’ to teach you all there was to know about livin’ in the mountains, but then he went and died on you, right?”

  “Uncle Zeke was killed by the Kiowas, yes. Fortunately, a friend of his came along and became my mentor, you might say. Shakespeare McNair.” Nate gazed up the trail. “The point of all this is that I have a Bible to spare. When we reach King Valley, I’ll give it to you.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t take your Bible.” Emala was genuinely shocked. She was used to whites treating her pretty much as they treated their cattle. But Nate and Winona had been kind to them from the start. The Kings bought them clothes and weapons, and, wonder of wonders, not only offered to guide them to the Rocky Mountains, but invited them to come live in the same valley.

  Emala never imagined white folks could be so nice. She’d noticed that Nate never cussed, which was a miracle in itself. It was her experience that cussing came as natural to men as breathing. Even her Samuel, no matter how much she nagged him, couldn’t control his tongue.

  Then there was Winona. Emala had never met an honest-to-goodness Indian woman before. Somehow, Emala got it into her head that all Indians lived for, male and female, was to lift the hair of every white—and black—they came across. But Winona was about the sweetest lady Emala ever met, and about the strongest. No so much physically strong as strong inside. Emala envied her. She would have liked to be as strong, but it just wasn’t in her.

  Suddenly Emala became aware Nate was still talking.

  “…sitting on the shelf gathering dust. I’d be obliged if you would reconsider.”

  “It might take us forever to repay you.”

  “Who asked you to? It’s enough that the book will be in the hands of someone who appreciates it.” Nate smiled and reached out and touched her arm, then jabbed his heels and trotted on ahead.

  “What a fine man,” Emala murmured.

  Not ten seconds later Samuel took his place. “What were you two talkin’ about just now?”

  “Why, Husband, you almost sound jealous,” Emala teased.

  “Be serious, woman. What is there to be jealous about? Nate’s wife is the prettiest female I ever set eyes on. He’s not about to throw her over for the likes of you.”

  Emala’s blood began to boil. “Please, no more compliments. I don’t think I can stand the praise.”

  Samuel cocked his head. “Listen to yourself. You’re being silly. All I’m sayin’ is that Nate King is happy with the woman he’s got.”

  “How about you?”

  “Me? How did I get into this?”

  “Are you happy with the woman you’ve got? Sometimes you don’t act like you are.”

  Wagging a finger at her, Samuel said, “No, you don’t. You’re not turnin’ this around and blamin’ me for God knows what.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. When we get to the pearly gates, He’s liable to turn you away.”

  “Don’t start on me with your religion.”

  “It’s your religion too. Or have you gone and given up on God just as you gave up on our life on the plantation?”

  Samuel squirmed as if fit to burst. “If you call wantin’ a new and better life for my family giving up, then yes, I guess I gave up. Maybe you didn’t mind havin’ a yoke around your neck every minute of every day, but I did.”

  “You always make it out to be worse than it was.”

  “And you always make it out to be better. It’s just plain silly.”

  “Well,” Emala said.

  They were silent for a space, and then Emala said, “What’s happenin’ to us? We never argued this much before we became runaways.”

  “I don’t rightly know,” Samuel admitted. “But it seems as if we can’t hardly talk anymore without fightin’.”

  Emala was about to say that despite all their spatting, she still cared for him as deeply as ever, when she became aware that Nate King had stopped and raised an arm to signal them to do the same. “What is it, do you suppose?”

  Nate said something to Chickory, who turned and whispered to Randa, who turned and whispered to Emala.

  “Mr. King says there are a bunch of Indians yonder, and they might be hostiles.”

  “Lordy!” Emala exclaimed in horror. She could practically feel the sharp sting of a knife slitting her throat from ear to ear. “Is there no end?”
/>   Nate King heard her and almost turned to tell her to hush, but she fell quiet. He concentrated on the figures moving about in a clearing ahead. By their features and their scalp locks and how they had fashioned their buckskins, he determined they were Pawnees.

  Considered a friendly tribe, the Pawnees were some of the first to venture east of the Mississippi River to visit the land of the white men. They were quick to see that trade with the whites was to their advantage. Years ago, Pawnee chiefs met with President Jefferson. Later on, about twenty of them paid President Monroe a visit and put on a war dance at the White House.

  But for all their friendliness, the Pawnees had a dark side. They were known to practice human sacrifice. Young female captives were offered up to the morning star in the belief it brought good fortune.

  Other tribes distrusted them, which was not unusual since many tribes were suspicious of one another. But distrust of the Pawnees ran particularly deep. They had a reputation for being bloodthirsty. There was even a Shoshone saying to the effect that a Pawnee would smile as he greeted you while stabbing you in the back.

  “Do we go around?” Winona asked. She held her Hawken across her saddle with her thumb on the hammer and her finger on the trigger.

  Nate counted nine Pawnees altogether. Since two were warriors and two were women and five were young ones ranging in age from ten about to about twenty, he reckoned it to be two families. They’d erected temporary shelters and were drying buffalo meat and curing hides.

  Winona was looking about. “I only see these, but there could be others.”

  Nate scanned both sides of the Platte. “I think it’s just them.”

  Unlike other plains tribes, the Pawnees did not rely on the buffalo for their existence. They hunted the beasts now and then, but mostly they farmed. They raised squash and maize and beans and other crops.

  “Do we go around?” Winona asked again.