Olan chuckled. “A man after my own heart.”
“I didn’t know,” Harrod said.
“Now you do. From here on out, every redskin we come across I’ll kill, unless there are too many of them.”
“I see. And these slaves we’re after? The Worth family? Do you plan to kill them, too?”
“Be sensible. The bounty is for dead or alive, but it’s a lot more for alive. That’s how I’ll take them back so long as they don’t give me cause to curl up their toes.”
“I see,” Harrod said again. He nodded at the woman, who had groaned and was stirring. “What about her?”
“She’s Olan’s to do with as he pleases.”
Olan licked his thin lips. “Now this is the kind of job I like. Kleist, fetch some water from the river so we can bring her around. Cranston, Bromley, climb down and hold her arms and legs. She’s apt to claw and kick.”
Harrod gigged his horse toward the other side of the clearing.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Wesley wanted to know.
“I’d rather not watch.”
Olan scowled. “What is this, old man? Don’t tell me you’re some kind of Injun lover?”
“I don’t give any more of a hoot about red skin than I do about white,” Harrod said. “But I do give a hoot about females. I can’t stand to see them abused. It’s the one thing I’ll not abide.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Olan said.
Cranston laughed and shook his head. “It takes all kinds, doesn’t it?” He trained his rifle on the frontiersman’s back. “I ought to blow you to hell, you old goat.”
“We need him,” Wesley said.
“But you heard,” Cranston objected. “He’s got a soft spot. Me, I lost my grandpa and an uncle to red vermin, and I’d as soon shoot anyone who sides with them.”
Wesley raised his Kentucky. “I don’t make a habit of repeating myself, boy. Harrod is not to be touched. I have a special use for him.”
Cranston hesitated, and then saw that Trumbo had pointed his rifle at him, too. Shrugging, he said, “What ever you say, Mister. You’re paying us. But I should think you’d agree with me, hating Injuns and blacks like you do.”
“There’s a time and a place, boy. We have to know when to keep our hate in and when to let it out.” Wesley nodded at Harrod. “You can go on ahead if you want but don’t go far.”
The frontiersman jabbed his heels into his horse. He rode several hundred yards and drew rein on a grassy bank overlooking a pool. Climbing down, he sat with his legs dangling over the side and stared at the water.
After a few moments hooves thudded, and Harrod pushed to his feet. He didn’t hide his surprise. “I reckoned you would stay and take part.”
“Not me,” Wesley said, alighting with agile grace. “Her kind don’t appeal to me.”
“Your partner, Trumbo?”
“He’s not as particular.”
Harrod gnawed his lower lip until he couldn’t hold in what he wanted to say. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Only if you don’t mind if I don’t answer.”
“Fair enough.” Harrod sat back down. “These blacks we’re after, the Worth family.”
“What about them.”
“You told me they’re runaway slaves, but you never told me why they ran away. Is it that they want to be free? I’ve heard that a good many Negroes try to reach Northern states like Pennsylvania and New York.”
“You heard true,” Wesley confirmed.
“Then why are these Worths heading west? Why try and reach the Rockies when it makes more sense for them to do the same as other runaway slaves?”
Wesley puffed a speck of dust from his rifle. “They’re not running for their freedom. They’re running for their lives.”
“Care to explain?”
Squatting, Wesley balanced his rifle across his knees and regarded the flowing water. “These Worths did the worst thing slaves can do: They killed their master.”
“Does that happen often?”
“Hardly ever. They worked on a plantation run by Frederick Sullivan and his two sons, Brent and Justin. Brent took a shine to Randa Worth and her pa went and murdered him.”
“I see.”
“You say that a lot,” Wesley said.
Harrod gnawed on his lower lip some more. “Mind if I ask you another question?”
“Damned if you ain’t the most curious son of a bitch I ever ran across. What now?”
“You made mention of some people who are helping the Worths. Who are they? And what do we do when we catch them?”
“The Worths are being helped by a mountain man and his squaw. It was them who killed the man I worked for, a gent known as Catfish, the best slave hunter there ever was. They’ll pay for that. They’ll pay in blood. But first I intend for them to suffer. I want to hear them beg for their lives before I snuff out their wicks.”
“I see.”
“You only think you do.”
“This mountain man and his wife—do you happen to know their names?”
“Nate and Winona King.”
Chapter Two
The girl was young and black and full of life. She had on a store-bought dress, the first store-bought dress she ever owned. If it were up to her she would keep it locked in a trunk and put it on only for special occasions. But her mother insisted she wear it to show the man and woman who bought it for her that she truly liked it, and the girl always did as her mother wanted her to do.
Randa Worth would wear it, but she refused to let it get dirty. Every smudge, every smear, every particle of dirt, she washed off. At night she shook the dress out, neatly folded it, and slept with it under her blanket, where it would be safe.
On this particular evening, Randa had been sipping tea when she spilled some on the dress. She promptly put the tin cup down and hurried to the river. The Platte River, they told her it was called.
Sinking to her knees, Randa dipped her hands in the water and splashed some on the spots the tea had made. Not that she thought the tea would leave stains; she wasn’t taking any chances with the prettiest dress she’d ever owned, though.
Randa’s reflection stared back at her from the surface of the Platte. She hadn’t changed much in the weeks they had been on the trail. To look at her, a person would never suspect the changes she was going through.
Her mother said every girl her age went through them, but Randa wasn’t sure she liked them. She certainly didn’t want her bosom to become as big as her mother’s, yet there was no denying that where she had once had walnuts, she now had apples.
“Why couldn’t I stay as I was?” Randa asked her reflection, and bent to dip her hand in again.
Suddenly the brush rustled and crackled, and the next instant a monster lumbered into sight. Or so it seemed to Randa. She had never seen a buffalo this close before. A bull buffalo, over five feet tall at the shoulder, with curved horns that made Randa think of twin sickles. She shuddered at the thought of them ripping into her body, and she cupped her wet hand to her mouth to holler to the others for help.
But Randa didn’t yell. She had changed her mind. So far the buffalo was ignoring her. Maybe it didn’t realize she was there. A yell might provoke it to charge.
Randa couldn’t get over how big it was. She had seen cows and oxen and hogs back on the plantation, but they were puny compared to this beast. Or maybe it was her imagination. Maybe it only looked so enormous because it was so close. Maybe it really wasn’t as scary as she thought it was.