“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.”
“The young never learn how fragile they are.”
Harrod glanced sharply at him. “Why, that’s almost poetical, that is. No one ever told me you have such a way with words.”
Nate shrugged. “I read a lot.”
“Is that a fact? I never got beyond the second grade. My ma wanted me to stick it out to the sixth, but I was always acting up and the teacher didn’t take kindly to my antics. He didn’t take kindly to them at all. Must have rapped my knuckles ten times a day with that ruler of his.”
“My father wouldn’t have let me quit school even if I’d wanted to.”
“One of those, was he? My pa lit out on us when I was four. Never did learn why. Ma said he took up with another woman but a friend of his told me he couldn’t take ma’s nagging anymore. Seems to me, though, that if a man says ‘I do,’ he shouldn’t abandon a gal just because she’s fond of flapping her gums.”
Now it was Nate who grinned. “You have a way with words yourself. Well put. Of all the virtues, I value loyalty pretty near the most.”
“Virtues, huh?” Harrod snickered. “I won’t lie to you and claim more than my share. I have my weaknesses, I am afraid. Money is one of them.”
“Oh?”
“Money is what brought me to the mountains to trap. Remember all the talk back then? About how a coon could make a small fortune for a few measly months of work?”
“It wasn’t entirely a lie,” Nate said. The best trappers earned upward of two thousand dollars at the rendezvous, at a time when most men back east were lucky to make three hundred dollars a year.
“Maybe so. But if I told you some of the other things I’ve done for money, you’d laugh. I’d laugh too except that some of my harebrained notions have cost me in scars and skin.”
“You’re not the only one.”
Harrod didn’t seem to hear him. “I’m just letting you know I’m no angel, so you don’t hold it against me later if I prove to be less than perfect.”
“Don’t worry,” Nate said. “I won’t hold you to a higher standard than I’d hold anyone else. So long as you show some common courtesy, you’re welcome to ride with us for as long as you like.”
Peleg Harrod beamed. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that.”
Chapter Seven
Everyone took to the new member of their little party. At first the Worths held back, but after several days and nights of the old frontiersman’s smiles and chatter, they were won over. Randa, in particular, loved to hear his stories about all he had done and seen in his travels.
Everyone took to the new member—except for Winona King. She couldn’t say what it was about Harrod, but something about him bothered her. She kept it to herself, thinking it silly, until the morning of the fourth day. She was up before first light. Chickory was supposed to be keeping watch. They all took turns. But the boy had dozed off and let the fire go out.
