Randa was last, and she brightened as he approached. “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.
Nate faced front and stiffened.
Up ahead was a rider, a frontiersman in greasy buckskins. The man had drawn rein and a friendly smile creased his salt-and-pepper beard. He had a rifle, but the stock was on his thigh and the muzzle pointed at the sky.
Nate scanned the vicinity but saw no one else. Leveling the Hawken, he slowly approached.
“I mean no harm, friend. Truly, I don’t,” the stranger said.
“A man can never be too careful,” Nate responded. He was trying to place the face; it was not anyone he’d ever met.
“That we can’t.” The rider’s smile widened. “I’m Peleg Harrod.”
“Peleg?”
“My ma lived and breathed her Bible. She named all ten of us by opening to a page and picking the first name she saw. I was one of the lucky ones. I’ve got a brother called Mizzah and another called Zelophehad.” Harrod laughed. “Then there are my sisters. One was named Timna, after a concubine. Another is Ahinoam.”
Nate introduced himself.
“King, you say? Why does that name strike a chord? You’re not by any chance the same King who is a good friend of Shakespeare McNair’s?”
“You know McNair?”
“I’ve heard of him,” Harrod said. “But then, who hasn’t? He’s older than Methuselah, or so they say. One of the first whites to ever set foot in the Rockies. I reckon he’s as famous as Bridger, Walker and Carson put together.”
“Don’t tell him that or his head will swell up even bigger than it already is,” Nate mentioned. Not that McNair thought too highly of himself; quite the contrary.
Harrod liked to laugh. “Well, fancy this. Meeting someone like you way out here.” He bobbed his bearded chin. “I’m heading for the mountains. Can’t wait to get there. I just spent a few weeks back east and I’m hankering to set eyes on the high country.”
“We’re bound for there too.”
“We?”
Nate mentally kicked himself. Harrod seemed friendly enough, but a person could never be too careful. “I’m with some others.”
“You don’t say? I’m by my lonesome, but I wouldn’t mind company. That is, if you don’t object.”
“I suppose not.” Nate gazed past Harrod, but there was no sign of anyone else. It was rare to come across someone alone on the prairie, but then, he’d crossed it a few times by himself.
Nate reined around and beckoned. “Ride with me and we’ll jaw.” Better that the stranger was beside him than behind him.
Harrod came up next to him. “I’m obliged.”
“You haven’t come across any sign of hostiles, have you?”
“Sure haven’t. And I don’t care to. I’m powerful fond of what hair I have left.”
“That’s good to hear. I was worried Sioux might be in the area.”
“Let’s hope not. They’re tricky devils and they don’t care a lick for whites. You’d think they were Blackfeet, they like counting coup on whites so much.”
“You know your Indians.”
“So do you, I hear. Is it true you were adopted by the Shoshones?”
Nate hadn’t realized that was common knowledge. “Some years ago, yes. My wife is Shoshone.”
“Well now. That must have been quite some honor. Me, I’ve always been too skittish about having my hair lifted to take up with redskins.” Harrod quickly added, “No offense meant.”
“None taken.”
Harrod showed more teeth. “I wouldn’t want us to get off on the wrong foot.”
They rode in silence for a while, until Nate shifted in the saddle to glance behind them.
“So, tell me, are you returning from a visit back east, too?” asked Harrod.
“I had to have my Hawken repaired.”
“Ah. You took it to the Hawken brothers? Smart thinking. Other gunsmiths do fine work, but no one can match Jacob and Samuel.”
Nate felt the same. They were the best. He would no more take his rifle to someone else for repair than he would wear buckskins made by someone other than Winona.
“And to think we owe it all to two people dying,” Harrod went on in his friendly fashion.
“How’s that?”
“Didn’t you know? Jacob and Samuel didn’t start out as partners. Jacob was working with a gent named Lakenan. Samuel had his own shop. Then Samuel’s wife died and he moved to St. Louis, some say to get away from the sad memories. Shortly after, that Lakenan fellow died and Jacob went to St. Louis to be with Samuel.”
“You know more about them than I do.”
Harrod chuckled. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you pick up kernels here and there. For instance, I’ve heard that your friend Shakespeare Mc-Nair has a Flathead wife. And I’ve heard it said that your son is a regular hellion and best fought shy of.”
“You sure hear a lot. My son’s been in a few scrapes, yes.”
“Say no more. I was young once. Had me a temper you wouldn’t believe. And not much common sense, either. Or I likely wouldn’t have struck off for the mountains to trap beaver for a living. Not when I didn’t know a thing about the mountains and even less about beaver.”
Nate found himself warming to the older man. Harrod was a talker, that was for sure. It reminded him of his mentor, McNair. “I was the same way.”
“Do tell. I reckon a lot of us didn’t have the brains of tree stumps. How else to explain why we put our lives at risk for the privilege of setting traps in ice-cold streams and risk having hostiles hang our hair on their coup sticks.” Harrod chuckled. “I thought I knew it all.”