“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
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 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?”
