“Part animal?” Cranston laughed and slapped his leg. “Mister, I might be young but I wasn’t hatched yesterday.”
“When I say part animal I mean just that, boy. They’ve lived among the wild things so long that they become part wild themselves. This Nate King killed one of the toughest men I knew, and he did it without hardly batting an eye. So, as good as I am in the woods, I’m not taking him lightly. You’d be wise to do the same, or the coyotes and buzzards will thank you for the meal.”
“You really think he’s as tough as all that?” Olan asked.
“I do,” Wesley confirmed. “But don’t fret. Every animal and every man has a weakness. Every single one. Weaknesses a hunter can take advantage of.” He motioned at the woodland. “Take deer, for instance. All a hunter has to know is when they like to come out to graze and drink, and he has them.”
“This mountain man must have a weakness, then,” Olan said. He sarcastically added, “But after the way you built him up, that don’t seem possible.”
“His weakness rides next to him during the day and sleeps next to him at night.”
Olan indulged in a vicious smile. “I take it you’re talking about his woman.”
Wesley nodded. “Our mountain man doesn’t know it yet, but that squaw of his will be his undoing.”
Nate King had to hand it to Red Fox. The Pawnee was as friendly as a Shoshone and a natural-born storyteller.
Red Fox had been entertaining them with tales of the Pawnee way of life. He told about the time his people and the Crows fought a great battle and how he counted his first coup by running up to a Crow warrior and striking the Crow across the temple. “I was filled with pride that night. I thought counting coup was everything.”
Nate sympathized. His son was once the same way. Zach had lived for battle, for counting the most coup of any Shoshone ever. Nate lost count of the number of times it nearly cost Zach his life. He was relieved beyond measure when Zach married and settled down.
“A man changes as he grows,” Red Fox was saying. “When he is young, his blood is hot and he wants only to prove his manhood. When he is older, he sees more worth in helping others than in taking their lives. Among my people, the greatest leaders are those who think of the welfare of all.”
“A wise sentiment,” Winona said. “It is the same among mine.”
Nate had been struck by the many beliefs different tribes shared, tribes that otherwise were always at war with one another. But whites were no better; their governments delighted in making peace treaties that they then broke to justify going to war.
“My people in the South don’t have leaders,” Samuel Worth commented. “Not the way you two do.”
“How can you say that?” Emala took exception. “Brother Simon held ser vices every Sunday, and Manday was an overseer.”
“Overseers are picked by the whites to keep the rest of us blacks down. That’s not bein’ a leader. That’s takin’ a whip to the backs of those who don’t work hard enough to suit you.”
“There’s still Brother Simon.”
“He was a windbag. He had no schoolin’. He just took to callin’ himself Brother and carryin’ around a Bible, and the next thing, folks looked up to him as the black Moses.”
“The things that come out of your mouth, Samuel Worth.”
Nate nipped their spat in the bud by saying, “There has been talk of freeing all the slaves one day soon. The state where I was born, New York, has already outlawed slavery.”
“Many winters ago the French made slaves of some of my people,” Red Fox interjected. “They were carried away and never seen again.”
“Whites have made slaves of red men as well as black men?” Samuel snorted.
“And black women,” Emala said.
Nate felt compelled to mention, “The Romans were white, and they had white slaves. The same with the Greeks. And in north Africa, the Arabs have made slaves of just about everybody for a thousand years or more.”
“It is not right to make a slave of anyone,” Red Fox said.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Samuel responded.
“It is better to kill an enemy than to make a slave of him,” Red Fox went on. “Why put an enemy to work when that is what women are for?”
“Oh, brother,” Randa said.
“Can’t we talk about somethin’ else?” Emala requested. “All this talk of slavery makes me miserable.”
“You’re the reason why not much has been done about it,” Samuel told her. “Too many of our kind stick their heads in the sand.”
Nate began to wonder if the pair ever got along. Since he met them, all they did was quarrel. It was to the point where if Samuel said it was hot, Emala would say it was cold.
Red Fox surprised all of them by turning to Samuel and offering, “Come live with my people. We do not have slaves. We would adopt you and you would be as one of us.”
“You’re joshin’,” Emala said.
“I speak with a straight tongue. The Crows have a black man. They say he brings them strong medicine. If you come live with us, we will have strong medicine, too.”
“If this don’t beat all.”
“Hush, Emala.” Samuel thoughtfully regarded Red Fox. “Let me see if I understand. You want us to live as you do? In a lodge in your village? And wear animal hides? And hunt buffalo and whatnot?”
“And skin them, yes. And go on raids and lift the scalps of our enemies. Can you think of a better life?”
Nate gave Samuel a sharp look to warn him not to say anything that would antagonize the Pawnees.
“That life is fine for you and yours, but not so fine for me and mine.”
“Sorry?”
“I tilled the soil back on the plantation. I didn’t hunt or fish or any of that. If it wasn’t for Nate and his wife, we’d have long since starved.”
“Then you will come live with us?”
“Aren’t you payin’ attention? I thank you for the invite. I truly do. But I’d make a terrible Indian.” Samuel shook his head. “We’re bound for King Valley. I can’t wait to get there. To hear Nate describe it, it’s heaven on earth.”
Nate hadn’t made any such claim. He was about to set them straight when a feeling came over him, a feeling that they were being watched. Shifting, he stared beyond the ring of firelight into the dark. It could be anything, he told himself. A bear. Deer. A coyote or a wolf. Or just his imagination.
“Is something wrong, Grizzly Killer?” Red Fox asked.
“For a second there I thought—” Nate caught himself. He didn’t want to come across as silly. “It’s nothing.”
The Pawnee children were soon made to turn in, and their mothers shortly followed. The Worths started yawning about ten, and Emala excused herself and her offspring. That left the men and Winona. Red Fox stayed up late, plying them with questions about the Shoshones and other tribes and translating for his friend, whose name was Hawk Takes Wing.
It was pushing midnight by Nate’s figuring when Winona announced her eyelids were too heavy for her to stay awake. Samuel turned in after her, and then the two warriors.
That left Nate. He refilled his tin cup with piping hot coffee and sat back. He had agreed to keep watch until three, and then he would wake Winona. As he raised the cup to his lips, that feeling came over him again. The feeling that he was being watched. Puzzled, he gazed about the clearing. All was peaceful.
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.