Only The Strong Read online

  He hoped it stayed that way.

  Chapter Five

  The Kings and the Worths rode out the next morning an hour after the sun came up. Usually they were under way at the crack of dawn, but Nate let the others sleep in. They could use the extra rest. More important, so could their mounts. It was a long way from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains—weeks and weeks of travel that took a toll on rider and mount.

  The Pawnees were up early. They went about their chores quietly. The children gathered wood and the women got a fire going. Red Fox and Hawk Takes Wing were preparing to ride out in search of buffalo.

  “One more kill and we will head back to our village,” Red Fox mentioned. “Our pack animals cannot carry much more meat.”

  “I wish you success in your hunt,” Nate said sincerely, and offered his hand in the white fashion.

  Red Fox stared at it, then smiled and shook. “I am proud to call Grizzly Killer my friend.”

  “Perhaps one day our two families can get together again.”

  “I would like that.”

  Nate was almost sorry to ride off. He would have enjoyed more of Red Fox’s company. But he was eager to reach the valley he now called home and make sure his son, Zach, and his best friend, Shakespeare McNair, hadn’t gotten into any trouble in his absence. McNair knew better, as old as he was. But Zach was young and rash, and often as not got into hot water without half trying.

  Strung out single file, they pushed on. They had been under way only a short while when Nate, who was in the lead, was joined by someone else.

  “They sure were nice Injuns,” Emala Worth said.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I don’t mind admittin’ I am. I mean, your wife is as sweet a woman as ever I met, and I adore her. But I never figured on liking other Injuns as much as I like that there Red Fox.”

  “You’re learning.”

  “I am? What, exactly?”

  “That it doesn’t matter what color skin a person has. People are people. There are good ones and bad ones of every color. The thing is to savvy enough to tell the difference.”

  “You’re awful smart for a man who lives up in the Rocky Mountains,” Emala said.

  Nate chuckled. “Anyone who likes the wilderness must be stupid?”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean that at all. You’re sure not. You speak as well as Master Justin and Master Frederick ever did. Must come from you bein’ a reader and all.”

  “I suppose that has something to do with it.”

  “Your wife is awful smart, too. She knows more languages than I have fingers. And she says your son and your girl are the same as the two of you.”

  “Nate realized she was trying to make a point. “What are you trying to tell me, Emala?”

  “Just this: I don’t want to impose. But I’ve been thinkin’ and I’ve got a favor to ask.”

  “You want us to watch Randa and Chickory so you and your husband can go off by yourselves this evening?”

  Emala blinked, then snorted, then burst into hearty laughter. “Oh, Mr. King. You are a dreadful tease. Samuel and me haven’t fooled around since we went on the run, and I don’t know as I will again until I have a roof over my head.”

  “Then what’s the favor?”

  “I’d like to ask if you and your missus would mind teachin’ my girl and my boy learnin’.”

  “How much schooling have they had?”

  “None.”

  Nate nearly drew rein. “None whatsoever?”

  “We were slaves, Mr. King. The folks who owned us didn’t allow for no schoolin’. All they cared about was that we tended their cotton fields and did the other work they made us do.” Emala sighed. “I can read, thanks to my ma. She taught me her own self. I tried to teach mine, but they didn’t take to it like I did.”

  “And your husband?”

  “Samuel can’t read or write a lick. I offered to teach him to read, but he couldn’t be bothered. Said it wouldn’t do him no good.”

  “Learning to read opens up whole new worlds,” Nate said. He was thinking of the works of Irving and Cooper and the poetry of Byron that he had on his bookshelf in his cabin.

  “Our owners didn’t want us openin’ new worlds. They wanted us to be content with what we had.”

  Nate tried to imagine what it must have been like to be lorded over by others, to have no say in one’s own life, to be treated as property instead of as people. “I feel sorry for you, Emala.”

  “Goodness. I’m grateful you care, but I don’t want your pity. I doubt Samuel does, either.”

  “You’ve lived a hard life.”

  “So? Except for the rich, who doesn’t? I’m not complain’, mind you. I won’t shed tears over who I am or where I was born. I had no say in that and it does no good to whine over things that are.”

  “I agree.”

  “But now I can do as I please, and it pleases me to try to better my children. What do you say? Will you do it?”

  “I’m not sure exactly what you want us to teach.”

  “Readin’ and writin’. Randa can read a little, but she’s never read an entire book in her life. As for Chickory, he takes after his father. Which is too bad. The last thing this world needs is two Samuel Worths.”

  “You’re awful hard on him.”

  “Oh, please. He’s a grown man. He can take it. Besides, ask any woman and she will tell you that men are like bulls. They’re ornery and stubborn and have to be led around by the nose or they get into all sorts of trouble.”

  “Oh, Emala…”

  “What? As God is my witness, I’m speakin’ the truth. But what do you say? Will you help us? Can you teach my kids to talk as good as your wife and read like you do?”

  “Wait. You think my wife talks better than I do?”

  “Oh, Lord, yes. Winona is a wonderment. She is as red as I am black, yet she speaks white better than both of us.”

  Nate wasn’t being told anything he didn’t already know. “I sure married a smart lady.”

  “That you did. Me, I married a man with more stubborn between his ears than brains.”

  “Oh, Emala…”

  “Why do you keep sayin’ that? If I speak my mind, it’s because I have a lot of mind to speak and I’m not shy about speakin’ it.”

  “I’m going to like having you for a neighbor.”

  “Really?”

  “Just remember, if Samuel and you ever need us to watch your kids for a night so you two can be frisky, let us know.”

  “Oh, Mr. King…”

  Red Fox was pleased. He and Hawk Takes Wing found a small herd of buffalo early in the day and brought one down, and now they were headed back to their camp on the Platte River to get their wives. Pawnee men did the hunting; the women did the skinning and the butchering. That was how it had always been for as long as any Pawnee could remember.

  The sun shone bright in a pale blue sky. Around them, the grass was stirred by a welcome breeze.

  Red Fox loved the prairie. The unending green, the splashes of flower color, the many kinds of animals, were a spectacle of which he never tired. The mountains, with their thick forests and deep canyons, were nice, but he loved the prairie more.

  On this particular morning, Hawk Takes Wing was in fine spirits, too. “Once the women have cut and dried the meat we can return to our village.”

  Red Fox grunted. He was looking forward to that. As much as he loved to hunt, he loved his people more. It gave him great satisfaction to fill their bellies.

  Unexpectedly, Hawk Takes Wing asked, “What did you think of Grizzly Killer?”

  “If more whites were like him, I would respect whites more.”

  “Do you think he has killed as many of the great bears as they say he has? I heard he has killed fifty, but that cannot be.”

  “I asked him. He said he does not remember the exact number. For a white man he is humble.”

  “That surprised me. Many whites strut around like elk in rut. E
ven when they are rabbits.”

  Red Fox chuckled. “I can see why the Shoshones adopted him. I hope I see him again.”

  “I liked his black friends. Their skin is like the night. And did you see their hair? A black scalp would be powerful medicine.”

  “Grizzly Killer told me there are many blacks where those came from. More blacks than there are Pawnees.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “If I am any judge of men, Grizzly Killer always speaks with a straight tongue.” Red Fox gazed thoughtfully to the east. “And if he does, then the day will come when our people must make an important decision.”

  “Explain.”

  “Grizzly Killer says there are more of his own people than there are blades of grass. He says they are as numberless as the stars at night. He says that they have taken up all the land east of the father of rivers and that there will come a day when they push west of it and take up all this land, too.”

  Hawk Takes Wing laughed. “Perhaps he boasts. There cannot be that many whites. Why, that would mean there are more of them than there are buffalo.”

  “It troubles me,” Red Fox said.

  “Fagh! Even if he does speak true, that day is many winters away. You and I will not live to see it.”

  “I hope you are right.”

  In the distance, the belt of trees and undergrowth that fringed the Platte River lined the horizon. The river itself was visible as patches of blue amid the boles.

  As they drew near, Hawk Takes Wing remarked, “I see smoke.”

  Red Fox straightened. So did he. And there shouldn’t have been. The women knew not to give away their presence by being careless. Smoke could bring enemies; the Sioux or the Blackfeet would delight in counting coup on Pawnees.

  “We must scold them for this,” Hawk Takes Wing said, and jabbed his heels against his horse.

  Red Fox made no effort to catch up. He would let his friend handle it. Hawk Takes Wing would be harder on the women than he would. He was content to ride at a leisurely pace and enjoy the splendor of the prairie. He saw Hawk Takes Wing gallop in among the trees, and then there was a commotion of some kind. Out raced Hawk Takes Wing’s sorrel, only without a rider. Thinking his friend had dismounted and something must have spooked the horse, Red Fox flicked his reins and rode to cut it off. Fortunately it stopped and didn’t shy when he came up and grabbed the rope reins to lead it back.

  The strip of woodland was quiet. Somewhere a robin sang. Sparrows flitted about.

  Red Fox came to the clearing and for a few moments could not make sense of what he was seeing. Everyone seemed to be asleep. The women and children were sprawled on their backs and their bellies. Even Hawk Takes Wing had lain down. Then Red Fox saw the blood. Shock slowed him as he raised his hand to his quiver. He didn’t quite have an arrow out when men rushed from both sides. Hands seized him and threw him to the ground. He lost his bow. He tried for his knife, but his attackers had hold of his arms, and the next instant he was roughly hauled to his feet. He struggled, but they were too strong.

  “Behave and you’ll live a little longer, redskin.”

  The speaker was a tall white in buckskins, a fine rifle cradled in the crook of an elbow.

  Red Fox stood still, his chin jutting in defiance. Inwardly, he struggled to contain his grief and his rage.

  “He understood you, Wesley,” said a bear of a man with a great beard. “He must speak English.”

  “Is that true, redskin? Do you savvy the white tongue?”

  Red Fox had to clear his throat. “I speak it well.”

  “Will wonders never cease,” a short man said.

  The one called Wesley placed the stock of his rifle on the ground and leaned on the barrel. “Listen, redskin. We’re after Nate King and the darkies he’s helping. If you speak English, like as not you and him had some long talks. Did he say where he’s headed? Will he stop at Bent’s Fort on his way up into the mountains? I doubt he’ll live to reach it but you never know.”

  “I will not tell you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” Wesley drew a hunting knife and wagged it so that the blade glinted in the sunlight. “I’m in no hurry. I’ll carve on you all day if that’s what it takes. And in the end, you’ll tell me. You’ll tell me everything. They always do.”

  Red Fox gazed at his dead wife and their dead children, and his sorrow was boundless. From it he drew strength. He refused to show weakness.

  “Say something,” Wesley said. “Show me you’re not as stupid as most of your kind.”

  “I have had a good life,” Red Fox said.

  “Well, bully for you,” mocked a man with a bristly mustache.

  “I have one regret.”

  The man called Wesley tilted his head. “What would that be, redskin?”

  “That I will not live to see Grizzly Killer kill you.”

  Chapter Six

  Nate King was enjoying himself. He was enjoying himself too much.

  If there was one lesson Nate had learned during his years on the frontier, it was that only the alert and the quick and the strong survived. The evidence was all around him. In the natural world, the unwary fell to the meat eaters. The slow fell to the fast. The weak fell to the strong.

  Predator-and-prey was the order of things. The elk past its prime was pulled down by wolves. The careless doe was pounced on by a mountain lion. The rabbit that didn’t jump at shadows was impaled by the talons of the hawk.

  The same held true when predators clashed. When two bears fought, inevitably the strongest won. When bull buffalo bumped heads, invariably the strongest head beat down the weaker.

  It was a lesson Nate learned the hard way. Too many times to count, he let down his guard and paid for his mistake with his blood or a narrow escape from the grave. He learned to always be alert, no matter where or when.

  So it was that as his party wound along the Platte River toward the far off Rockies, Nate grew upset with himself. He liked the Worths; he liked them a lot. Samuel was a good companion. Emala made him laugh. Randa and Chickory were endless founts of curiosity. The trouble was, he liked them too much. He was paying attention to them and not to their surroundings.

  On this particular day, with the blazing sun high in the afternoon sky, Nate mopped his brow with his sleeve and remarked to his sager half, “We need to be more watchful.”

  Winona was admiring the antics of a goldfinch and its mate. “Have you seen sign I’ve missed?”

  “No, only animal tracks. But we’re close to Sioux country.”

  “Strange you should mention it, Husband.”

  “Why?”

  “It is probably nothing. But I have been uneasy for a while now. Nerves, I suppose.”

  “You have the calmest disposition of anyone I’ve ever known,” Nate said, praising her.

  “Thank you. But that is not true. Blue Water Woman never lets anything fluster her. I often wish I were more like she is.”

  Nate grunted. Blue Water Woman was the Flat-head wife of his best friend, Shakespeare McNair. “Why haven’t you said something?”

  Winona shrugged. “I thought I was being silly. I wake up at night thinking something is wrong, but everything is fine. I feel I am being watched, but I never am.”

  “Damn.”

  “I do wish you would stop saying that. You never swore when you were younger. It is a habit you can do without.”

  Nate remembered the language used by his fellow trappers at the rendezvous, back in the days when beaver plews were worth good money. “You’re starting to sound like Emala,” he teased.

  “She is a good woman. We will be fast friends.”

  Nate raised his reins. “This unease of yours…Maybe I should take a look around.”

  “Now?”

  “It will be hours yet until sundown. There’s plenty of time.” Nate touched her arm, then wheeled his bay and rode back along the line, passing each of the Worths.

  Randa was last, and she brightened as he appro
ached. “What are you up to, Mr. King? If you don’t mind my askin’.”

  “I keep asking you to call me by my first name.”

  “Sorry. My ma raised me to always be polite.”

  Nate nodded at the woodland behind them. “I’m going to check our back trail.”

  “Can I come along?”

  Nate knew Winona would tease him no end. But he gave a different reason. “There’s no telling what or who I’ll run into. I have to do it alone.”

  “Be careful. Please.”

  “Always.” Nate brought the bay to a trot until he was out of her sight, then slowed to a walk again. To his left gurgled the Platte. The river consisted mainly of long sandy channels fringed with vegetation. Here and there were deeper pools.

  Presently he emerged from heavy growth into an open area with wetlands on either side. A pair of cranes took flight, their necks almost as long as their legs. A harmless ribbon snake slithered from his path. To the south a hawk soared on the air currents.

  Nate breathed deep and smiled. God, how he loved the wilderness! He never tired of the splendor, never wearied of the parade of life. He shuddered to think that once he wanted to be an accountant. He would have spent his entire life in a dimly lit office, scribbling in ledgers. No sun, no wind in his hair, no dank earth under his feet. Just him and the office and his reflection in a mirror. “Thank you, Lord,” he said out loud.

  Another crane took wing. The flapping drew Nate out of himself and back to the here and now. Once again he had let himself be distracted. He was falling into a number of bad habits of late. Shaking his head to clear it, he focused on his surroundings. “The last thing I need is an arrow in the back.”

  Nate chuckled. Talking to himself was another habit he could do without. Patting the bay, he said, “I’m downright pitiful.”

  More than a mile more of riding brought him to a bank choked by heavy thickets. Rather than inflict the briars on the bay, Nate reined to the right to go around. He gazed out over the prairie and spied several specks on the horizon. Buffalo, if he was any judge, maybe stragglers from a herd that had passed through. He was tempted to try to get closer. Buffalo meat was just about his favorite, second only to mountain lion. But without a pack horse he wouldn’t be able to bring much of the meat back, and he hated to think of nearly an entire buff going to waste.