“Resting so soon? I figured someone with as many muscles as you must have stamina to spare.”
“It’s a good thing my wife isn’t here. She would shoot you.”
Aunt Aggie grinned in delight, then sobered. “Be honest with me. I saw you whispering with Smelly. What is going on?”
“Smelly?”
“My nickname for our guide. Haven’t you noticed? If you are near him when the wind is right, you would swear you were downwind of a barrel of rotten apples. And that is being charitable.”
It was Nate’s turn to grin. “Baths aren’t considered a necessity out here.”
“You must be a reader,” Aunt Aggie said. “I can always tell by the words people use. And only a reader uses ‘necessity’ Smelly would have said something like, ‘Baths ain’t good for you,’ and then scratched his armpit and smelled his fingers.”
Despite his concern, Nate indulged in a belly laugh. “I do happen to own a couple dozen books. I have my mother to thank. She loved to read. She turned me into a reader when I was six and I have been reading ever since.”
“Smart woman. But then readers always are. Our brains need fertilizer just like plants or they go to weed like Smelly’s.”
A cough came from behind her. The four offspring had drawn rein and were waiting for her to go on.
“Our folks are getting too far ahead,” Fitch said.
“We will talk books later,” Aunt Aggie told Nate, and clucked to her horse.
Fitch and Harper rode past. Anora remarked that she was sore from all the riding. Tyne came to a stop and fixed those trusting blue eyes of hers on Nate.
“Why are Indians following us, Mr. King?”
Nate almost swore. “You’ve seen some?”
“Oh, yes. There are four of them. They are being sneaky, but I spotted them when I was swatting at a fly that wouldn’t leave me alone. I didn’t let on that I knew they were back there.” Tyne chortled. “They are funny, the way they go from tree to tree and try to stay hid.”
“Why didn’t you let me know?”
“I’m sorry. Should I have? No one told me. Mother said that if any Indians came up Tome I was to smile and be friendly so they would be nice, but those Indians haven’t come close yet.” Tyne fluffed at her golden curls. “They must be friendly or they would have tried to hurt us by now. And here I’d heard the most awful things about Indians.”
Nate remembered a Mexican freighter he came across once down near Santa Fe. The Apaches had tied the man upside down to a wagon wheel and lit a fire under his head. Then there were the three Conestogas caught unawares by Comanches. He could think of plenty more, but he preferred not to. “From here on out, little one, you tell me when you spot an Indian. Anytime, day or night, whether I am awake or asleep.”
“I will.” Tyne smiled and slapped her legs against her pinto. “I better catch up. Father gets annoyed if we fall behind.”
Nate brought up the rear. He deliberately rode slow until a fifty-foot gap separated him from the rest. When he came to a cluster of cabin-sized boulders, he reined in among them, swinging down and shucking his Hawken from the saddle sheath. Then, keeping low, he worked his way to the lowest boulder, flattened, and crawled to where he had an unobstructed view of the slope he had just climbed.
Now all Nate had to do was wait. Whoever was back there was bound to show themselves. He hoped it wasn’t hostiles.
Some whites were fond of saying that the only good Indian was a dead Indian, but Nate wasn’t one of them. He didn’t hate Indians just because they
Long ago, Nate had learned an important lesson. The red man was really no different than the white. Oh, each had their own customs, and they wore different clothes and lived in different dwellings and spoke different languages. But when all that was stripped away, the red man and the white man were a lot more alike than either was willing to admit.
Another lesson Nate learned was that, just as with whites, there were good Indians and there were bad Indians. There were Indians who were kind to one and all, and Indians who would slit the throat of an Indian from another tribe as readily as they would slit the throat of a white man.
Movement below brought an end to Nate’e reflection. He rose on his elbows to better see the four warriors who had emerged from the trees and were climbing toward him.
“Damn.”
Nate didn’t need his spyglass to tell they were Blackfeet. And there was nothing the Blackfeet liked more than to count coup on whites.
Dueling Fingers
It was rare to see Blackfeet so deep in the mountains. Rare, too, to see such a small number. Usually their war parties were made up of thirty or more warriors. Nate suspected the four were a hunting party; they had spotted Ryker and the Woodrows lower down and were waiting for a chance to kill them or steal their horses, or both.
Nate racked his brain for a way to avoid bloodshed. A parley was out of the question. The warriors were apt to attack the moment he showed himself.
Reluctantly, Nate settled the Hawken’s sights on the warrior in the lead and thumbed back the hammer. He curled his finger around the rear trigger and pulled it to set the front trigger. Then, his finger around the front trigger, he took a deep breath to steady his aim.
The four Blackfeet abruptly halted and stared intently up the slope.
To Nate, they appeared to be looking right at him, or at the boulders he was in. He couldn’t imagine how they had spotted him, as low to the ground as he was. Then he realized they weren’t staring at him; they were looking at something to his right. He raised his cheek from the Hawken and received a shock.
Tyne Woodrow had come around the boulders, apparently spotted the Blackfeet, and drawn rein. There she sat, smiling sweetly down at them.
Alarm coursed through Nate. He doubted the Blackfeet would kill her. But they might decide to take her back with them to raise as one of their own. He placed his cheek to the Hawken, but he didn’t shoot. All four warriors had bows. If they should send a flight of arrows up the slope, a shaft might hit Tyne.
Nate stood and moved into the open. Stepping close to Tyne, he said without taking his eyes off the Blackfeet, “Don’t move. We are in deep trouble.”
“Mr. King!” Tyne said cheerfully. “I wondered where you got to. I thought maybe your horse threw a shoe, so I came back to look for you. Who are those Indians?”
“They are Blackfeet and they don’t like whites.”
“Why wouldn’t they like me? I’ve never done them any harm. My mother says that so long as we are nice to people, they will be nice to us. And Indians are people, too.”
Nate’s regard for the girl soared. “Sometimes nice isn’t enough.”
“Should we go talk to them and ask what they want? My father says that Indians like to trade.”
“We’ll stay put.”
“I have some pretty ribbons for my hair. One is green and one is yellow and another is the most wonderful blue. Do you think they would like ribbons for their wives or their sisters?”
Nate almost laughed at the notion of pacifying the implacable Blackfeet with a few paltry ribbons.
“Oh, look! The one with the big nose is coming toward us. He’s quite dashing except for his nose.”
Nate tensed. The warrior in the lead was indeed climbing. Nate raised his Hawken, then realized the warrior had not done the same with his bow. Suspicious of a trick, Nate lowered his rifle again.
The other Blackfeet weren’t moving.
Tyne turned out to be a little chatterbox. “My goodness, they have fine buckskins. And look at how their hair
