Only The Strong

“I’d better not. You’ll be even more upset with me.”

“Not if I can help it,” Winona assured him. She looked downriver and then upriver, and thought she saw movement in trees a half mile away. A hint of brown. Deer, she guessed.

“Since you insist, I’m curious: How come you and your husband have taken up with the Worths?”

“They are nice people.”

“That’s not what I meant. They’re black. Doesn’t that bother you any?”

“Should it?”

“Heavens, no. It’s just that I know a few folks it would bother. Some men who hate blacks just because they are black. Men who would put a slug between their eyes for no reason other than they think the world would be a better place without them.”

The irony of his words was not lost on Winona. Here she was being asked the very thing she had asked Nate. “I take people as they are. I judge them by how they act, not by their skin.”

“That’s mighty noble of you,” Harrod said, “but a lot of people don’t share your high ideals. Me, I’m the same as you. I take everyone pretty much as they are.”

Winona couldn’t let his bald-faced lie pass. “Yet you never forget their color, do you?” If her goal was to fluster him, it worked

“No, I don’t, and I’ll tell you why. People ain’t the same. I don’t care what anybody says, whites don’t act like blacks and blacks don’t act like whites and neither whites nor blacks act and think like the red.”

“We have more in common than you think.” Winona raised the pot out of the river. Water sloshed over the rim and splashed on her dress.

“Can you give me a for instance?”

“We have hearts, Mr. Harrod. Red people have hearts and white people have hearts and black people have hearts. And in those hearts are the same yearnings for happiness and love. That is what we have in common.”

“You don’t really believe that?”

“I would not say it if it were not true.” Wheeling, Winona headed back. He quickly caught up.

“Dang. You talk like no female I ever come across. Like no male, either. Where do you get these highfalutin notions? From your husband?”

“I get them from life, Mr. Harrod. Do you know that among my people, the Shoshones, there is one trait held in higher esteem than any other? Can you guess what that trait is?”

“Esteem, you say? That’s where you think highly of something or other, right? If I was to guess, I’d say that for Shoshone warriors, counting coup counts more than anything else.”

“We are bloodthirsty savages, is that it?” Winona sighed sadly. “No, Mr. Harrod. The trait my people admire most is wisdom.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“I would never touch so much as your toe, Mr. Harrod.”

“But wisdom? What does that mean, exactly? What is wisdom? Is your wisdom the same as mine or anybody else’s?”

“Among my people, a wise leader is one who looks out for their welfare. A wise warrior is one who knows when to count coup and when not to count coup. A wise woman is one who keeps her lodge in order and imparts to her children the things they must know to live a long, happy life.”

“How you talk…” Harrod marveled. “You make flowers of words.”

“It is your tongue, Mr. Harrod. Why whites do not learn it better has always puzzled me.”

“You sure are something,” the frontiersman went on. “No wonder your husband is so powerful fond of you. Too bad I didn’t meet you before he did. You might be mine instead of his.”

“That would never be.”

“Why not?”

“You are not him.”

Nate was up, adjusting his powder horn and ammo pouch across his chest. “There you two are. I wondered where you got to.”

“This wife of yours is a wonderment,” Harrod said. “If more females were like her, there’d be less for us men to grumble about.”

“You get no argument from me.”

Harrod nodded at him and smiled at Winona and walked off whistling, as happy as could be.

“Nice man,” Nate remarked.

“He is full of flattery,” Winona said. “In the past ten minutes he has praised me more than you do in a year.”

“That just shows how nice he is.”

“No, Husband. It shows we must not trust him any farther than you can throw a buffalo.”

Chapter Eight

Chickory Worth lost sight of the buck he had been following and frowned. He had been gone from camp too long. His parents would worry. They’d likely ask Nate King to come find him, which would embarrass him something awful. It was sometimes hard being the youngest.

Chickory was fourteen, three years younger than Randa, but it was the difference between being treated like a man and being treated like a child. Randa, his parents thought of as a grown woman, but him, he might as well have been ten. It upset him no end.

Chickory was trying his best to show how mature he could be. He helped with camp chores. He took a turn standing watch at night. He never complained. But one thing he hadn’t done, and would very much like to do, was to contribute to the supper pot. Nate and Winona shot game all the time. The newcomer, Harrod, had brought down a buck and a grouse in the few days he had been with them. His own pa shot a rabbit once.

So it was that when they had stopped at noon to rest the horses, Chickory went over to where his father was sitting. He was careful to make sure his mother was busy with Winona King before he quietly said, “I have somethin’ to ask you, Pa.”

“Ask away.”

“Do you suppose you could lend me that pistol Mr. King bought for you back in Missouri?”

His father had glanced up. “What on earth do you want that for? And don’t you remember your mother sayin’ you weren’t to touch it no matter what?”

“I remember,” Chickory admitted. “But she doesn’t understand things like you do.”

“False praise is no praise, Son. Suppose you come right out with it and let me be the judge.”

Afraid the answer would be no, Chickory poked at the ground with his toe. “All right. I want to do some huntin’ while everyone is restin’. I won’t be long. I promise.”

“Huntin’?” Samual repeated.

“Yes, sir. For somethin’ to eat. I want to show Mr. King I can do my share.”

“Help with the horses. Tote water. Those sorts of things. Leave the huntin’ for them as is hunters.”

“Please, Pa. I never ask you for much, do I? But I’d sure like the chance. It’d mean a lot to me.”

“You ain’t never fired a gun before but once,” Samuel reminded him.

“But I remember how it’s done.” Chickory had put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Please, Pa.”

“Damnation.” Samuel had looked toward Emala and lowered his voice. “If your ma hears of this, she’ll take the gun from you and use it to club me to death.”

“I won’t say a word. I promise. I’ll sneak off and sneak back and she’ll never know.”

“How are you goin’ to sneak back with a dead animal over your horse?”