Only The Strong

by David Thompson

  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?”

  “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.

  Winona quietly rose from under the blankets so as not to awaken her husband. She stretched, then walked toward the charred embers, smoothing her dress. She didn’t look up until she was almost there.

  Peleg Harrod was missing.

  Winona gazed about the clearing. Everyone else was still asleep. But Harrod’s blankets were thrown back, and he was gone. She figured he had risen and gone off to wash up in the Platte. Kneeling, she set to rekindling the fire. Chickory let out a snore, and she grinned. Over the past weeks she had grown quite fond of the Worths. It had been her idea to have Nate ask them if they would like to settle in King Valley. Nate had proven reluctant, and she had probed to find out why.

  “What is wrong, Husband? You do not want them to live near us because they are black?”

  Nate had stiffened in indignation. “If I were that way, would I have married you?”

  “I am red, or so your people say, and not black.”

  “Don’t quibble. If you honestly and truly think that I judge people by the color of their skin, say so now and I’ll go off and live by myself.”

  Winona had arched an eyebrow. “You are making more of this than it deserves.”

  “Not when you just called me a bigot, I’m not.”

  “Never in a million winters would I think that,” Winona had assured him. Placing her hand on his broad chest, she had smiled up into his troubled eyes. “I love you more than I love life. I am sorry if I have hurt your feelings.”

  “That’s better.”

  “So tell me why you do not want them to come to our valley? What reason could you have? It is not as if we want for space. There are three cabins and a lodge in a valley that is”—Winona had paused, trying to remember what he told her once—“big enough for a thousand families.”

  “One more might not seem like a lot to you,” Nate had responded, “but when we first moved there, the idea was to get off by ourselves. We were too near the Oregon Trail, where we lived before. Too near the foothills.”

  “I remember.” It had seemed to Winona as if strangers happened by every time she turned around.

  “It was supposed to be only us and Zach and Lou and Shakespeare and Blue Water Woman. Then the Nansusequas showed up and you were too kindhearted to turn them away.”

  “That was your decision, not mine,” Winona corrected. “You are the one with the kind heart, although you try to hide that you have one.”

  Nate ignored her comment. “Now you’ve invited the Worths. At the rate we’re going, we’ll have us our very own city in no time.”

  “Oh, Husband.” Winona had laughed heartily. “I understand, though. We will let the Worths stay, but no one else after them. Agreed?”

  Nate had nodded and the matter was settled.

  Now, as Winona poked a stick at the embers and thin wisps of smoke rose into the crisp morning air, she thought of how surprised her son and their friends the Nansusequas would be. New settlers were one thing; blacks were quite another. The Worths were so unlike her people and the whites, and yet so much like them, too. She looked forward to many a day spent in Emala’s company, learning all there was to learn about her kind.

  One of the horses nickered, and Winona glanced up.

  Harrod was coming back but not from the direction of the river. He was coming from the east, which struck Winona as strange. He saw her at the same instant she saw him, and he stopped short as if in surprise. Then, wearing his perpetual smile, he strolled into the clearing.

  “Good morning, Mrs. King. You’re up awful early this fine morning. The sun hasn’t risen yet.”

  “The same could be said of you.”

  “Oh, I’ve always been an early riser,” Harrod said. #8220;I was raised on a farm, and we had to be up and out at the crack of dawn to milk the cows and collect chicken eggs and such.”

  Bending to puff on a red ember, Winona asked, “See anything on your walk?”

  “Just the usual. A few deer. A few birds.” Harrod coughed. “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.” When the flames were high enough to suit her, Winona picked up the coffeepot and shook it. “Empty. I need to make more. My husband is unable to start his day without a cup or two.”

  “I’m the same way.” Harrod cradled his rifle. “How about if I walk with you? Just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  “In case a griz happens by. Or a cougar. Or a pack of wolves.” Harrod grinned. “Then there are the two-legged kind who wear paint and like to lift hair.”

  “I have these,” Winona said, patting the flintlocks tucked under the leather belt she wore. “But you may come with me if you wish.” She went and got her own rifle.

  “You sure are a cautious soul.”

  “I take that as a compliment, Mr. Harrod. My husband likes to say that the more cautious we are, the longer we live.”

  “Smart gent, that man of yours.”

  “I have always thought so, yes.”

  They were passing through a stand of cottonwoods, the trunks pale in the predawn light. Here and there were a few willows and oaks.

  Winona breathed deep and admired the pink tinge on the eastern horizon.

  “May I ask you a question, Mrs. King?”

  “So long as it is not personal.”

  “I was just wondering how it is that you chose to live with a white man when you likely could have had your pick of any buck in your tribe?”

  Winona stopped and looked at him. “In the first place, I said no personal questions. But for your information, I married my husband because I love him. In the second place, I will thank you not to call the men of my tribe ‘bucks.’ ”

  “What’s wrong? Whites do it all the time.”

  “It is like calling me a squaw.”

  Harrod shrugged, then smiled. “If I stepped over the line, I’m right sorry. I always aim to please.”

  Winona walked on. Once again that feeling of distrust came over her. But other than ask a question he had no business asking, he had done nothing wrong. His next comment startled her.

  “You don’t like me very much.”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “It’s hard to put into words. Let’s say I feel it in my bones. But I don’t see why. I’ve always held females in high respect. Even red ones.”

  “What is that white saying? Oh, yes. You keep putting your foot in your mouth.”

  Harrod scratched his chin and studied her, more amused than offended. “The last thing I want is to have you upset with me. I’m grateful to your husband for letting me tag along. It gets lonesome crossing the prairie alone.”

  Winona said nothing. She was amazed he had sensed her feelings. She wondered whether she had given them away somehow.

  “It’s safer for me, traveling with you. I don’t mind admitting that’s one of the reasons I asked. But if you’re against it for some reason, say so now and I’ll go my own way.”

  For one of the few times in her life, Winona went against her better judgment. “Where you got these notions from, I will never know. My husband invited you, so you are welcome to ride with us for as long as you like.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. You’re about the sweetest gal I’ve ever come across, and I mean that sincerely.”

  “Be careful not to overdo it.”

  Harrod laughed. “Don’t you beat all. But don’t worry, I’ll try not to praise you if I can help it.”

  The trees thinned and the ribbon of blue that was the Platte spread before them. Winona moved down the bank and knelt. Sh
e removed the top of the coffeepot and dipped the pot in the river. The water was pleasantly cool. She noticed the old frontiersman studying her again. “What?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  “About?”

  “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.