Only The Strong

Chapter Two

The girl was young and black and full of life. She had on a store-bought dress, the first store-bought dress she ever owned. If it were up to her she would keep it locked in a trunk and put it on only for special occasions. But her mother insisted she wear it to show the man and woman who bought it for her that she truly liked it, and the girl always did as her mother wanted her to do.

Randa Worth would wear it, but she refused to let it get dirty. Every smudge, every smear, every particle of dirt, she washed off. At night she shook the dress out, neatly folded it, and slept with it under her blanket, where it would be safe.

On this particular evening, Randa had been sipping tea when she spilled some on the dress. She promptly put the tin cup down and hurried to the river. The Platte River, they told her it was called.

Sinking to her knees, Randa dipped her hands in the water and splashed some on the spots the tea had made. Not that she thought the tea would leave stains; she wasn’t taking any chances with the prettiest dress she’d ever owned, though.

Randa’s reflection stared back at her from the surface of the Platte. She hadn’t changed much in the weeks they had been on the trail. To look at her, a person would never suspect the changes she was going through.

Her mother said every girl her age went through them, but Randa wasn’t sure she liked them. She certainly didn’t want her bosom to become as big as her mother’s, yet there was no denying that where she had once had walnuts, she now had apples.

“Why couldn’t I stay as I was?” Randa asked her reflection, and bent to dip her hand in again.

Suddenly the brush rustled and crackled, and the next instant a monster lumbered into sight. Or so it seemed to Randa. She had never seen a buffalo this close before. A bull buffalo, over five feet tall at the shoulder, with curved horns that made Randa think of twin sickles. She shuddered at the thought of them ripping into her body, and she cupped her wet hand to her mouth to holler to the others for help.

But Randa didn’t yell. She had changed her mind. So far the buffalo was ignoring her. Maybe it didn’t realize she was there. A yell might provoke it to charge.

Randa couldn’t get over how big it was. She had seen cows and oxen and hogs back on the plantation, but they were puny compared to this beast. Or maybe it was her imagination. Maybe it only looked so enormous because it was so close. Maybe it really wasn’t as scary as she thought it was.

Then the great behemoth of the plains swiveled its giant head and stared at her, and Randa felt goose bumps ripple down her spine. It really was scary, and when its nostrils flared and it snorted, Randa did what her instincts compelled her to do: She rose, whirled, and ran.

And Randa could run. Ever since she was knee high to her mother, she’d been extremely swift of foot. She proved it by winning many of the races the slaves held. She’d always wanted to enter the races the whites put on, but it wasn’t allowed. Slaves were not allowed to mix socially with their masters.

Randa flew, her bare feet smacking the earth so lightly and rapidly that she barely touched the ground.

But as fast as she was, the buffalo was faster.

She heard it crashing through the vegetation after her, and she glanced back to discover, to her horror, that its size did not mean it was slow. To the contrary, its massive muscles propelled it after her as if it were a hairy cannonball shot from a cannon.

“Oh God!” Randa blurted, and applied all the speed her sinews could muster. The cottonwoods and other trees were a blur. She was running blindly, desperately, and it occurred to her that wasn’t the thing to do. She should run for help. She should make for the clearing where she had left her ma and pa and brother, and the Kings. Nate King, in particular, would know what to do. The mountain man knew everything there was to know about the prairie and the animals that called the prairie their home.

The buffalo narrowed the space between them. Every breath was a wheeze as loud as a blacksmith’s bellows. The thud of its heavy hooves was like the beat of drums.

Randa glanced back again and gasped. It was so close! Its black horns bobbed with every bound, and she imagined them hooking her and rending her poor body limb from limb. “Please, no,” she said.

Randa faced front. Too late, she saw the bush. She didn’t know what kind it was, only that it was a tangle of small vinelike limbs, and when she slammed into them, they wrapped around her legs. Before she could stop or veer to the side, her feet were swept out from under her and she crashed down on her shoulder. Instantly, Randa went to push up and keep running, but a gigantic silhouette loomed above her, and she turned to stone.

The bull straddled her. Out of the corner of her eye, Randa saw its gaze fixed intently on her. It sniffed her and pawed the ground. Its warm breath fanned her arm, her cheek. She was nose to nostrils with one of the most fearsome creatures on the continent, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming.

“Don’t move!”

Randa’s gaze darted to the man who had rushed up. She almost cried out his name in heartfelt relief.

Nate King was big in his own right. Big and broad of shoulder, his muscular frame clothed in buckskins and moccasins. A powder horn and ammo pouch crisscrossed his chest. A possibles bag hung at his side. Twin flintlock pistols were wedged under his wide brown leather belt, and a bowie knife in a beaded sheath hung on his left hip. On his right hip was a tomahawk. In his hands, trained on the bull buffalo, was a Hawken rifle custom made for him by the famed brothers of that name in St. Louis. A beaver hat contained his black mane of hair, and a single white eagle feather hung from the back of his head.

“Don’t move,” Nate cautioned a second time. “It’s only curious. If it were mad, you’d be dead by now.”

The buffalo raised its shaggy head and stared at him. Nate fingered his Hawken but didn’t shoot. His wife came running to his side and wedged her rifle to her shoulder.

“Don’t fire unless it charges, Winona.”

Winona was a Shoshone. A fine doeskin dress, decorated with scores of blue beads, hung to below her knees. Like Nate, she had a powder horn, ammo pouch and hunting knife. Like Nate, she was armed with a brace of pistols and held a Hawken. And like her man, she showed no fear as she took deliberate aim.

“If it charges, go for the lungs.”

“I have killed buffalo before, Husband. You might recall—you were there when I shot some of them.”

Nate had specified the lungs for a reason. Buffalo skulls were so thick that penetrating them to the brain was next to impossible. A heart or lung shot was best, and even then the lead ball must shear through thick layers of fat and muscle to reach the vitals. Next to grizzlies and gluttons, buffalo were about the hardest creatures to kill of any alive.

Other figures came running: a black man almost as big as Nate, a woman as wide as she was tall, and a boy of fourteen. Samuel Worth; his wife, Emala; and their son, Chickory. All three stopped when Nate motioned.

“Randa!” Emala cried.

“Hush, woman!” Samuel Worth snapped. “Do you want to get our girl killed?”

Chickory grabbed his father’s arm. “What do we do, Pa? What do we do?”

“You do nothing,” Nate King said. “Stand still and keep quiet and maybe it will leave her be.”

“Maybe?”

The bull sniffed loudly at Randa’s face and neck. A drop of saliva fell on her cheek, and she quivered.

“Stay still!” Nate stressed.

Randa was trying, but her body wouldn’t stop trembling.

Nate edged forward. The girl was doing her best but might give in to fear at any moment. He’d encountered buffs before, and nine times out of ten, when confronted by a human, they ran. It was the tenth time he had to worry about.

The bull snorted. It stamped. Just when it seemed it would charge, it wheeled and crashed off through the undergrowth.

“Praise the Lord!” Emala exclaimed.

Nate was the first to reach Randa, and he helped her up. “Are you all right? Did it hurt you any?”

Randa, trembling, sagged against him, her cheek on his broad chest. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Nate patted her shoulder. “There, there. You did fine. Exactly as you should have.”

“I did?”

Winona joined them. Only a few steps behind were Chickory, Samuel and Emala.

Emala pried Randa from Nate and practically enfolded her daughter in her motherly bosom. “Lordy! Don’t scare us like that, child. I was prayin’ like I’ve never prayed. That awful creature, with all that hair and those horns! Why the Good Lord made such a thing, only the Good Lord knows.”

Samuel offered his calloused hand to Nate. “I’m sorry you have to keep savin’ us, Mr. King. I thank you again.”

Nate shook Samuel’s hand heartily. He liked the Worths, liked them a lot. It was partly why he agreed to guide them to the Rockies. The other part had to do with the slaver hunters who had been after them. Two-legged coyotes who hurt Winona when she tried to help the Worths. No one hurt Nate’s wife and got away with it. Ever.

Chickory was staring after the buffalo. “Did you see how big that thing was? And you say there’s millions of them? How can that be? Are they like rabbits, always havin’ young?”

Nate explained, “The cows usually only have one calf at a time. I reckon there are so many because they can live twenty-five years or better, and there’s not much that can kill them except man.” Wolves weeded out the old and the sick, but they were relatively few.

“It’s the Almighty’s doin’,” Emala declared. “His hand is over this land. It’s the Garden of Eden all over again.”

Nate read the Bible often. He loved to read. In their cabin was an entire shelf lined with books, his most prized possessions. “The Garden of Eden had the Tree of Life and every animal under the sun.”

Emala brightened. “You know your Scripture.”

“When my children were little, I read passages to them every night.”

“So did I. I admire that in a man,” Emala said with a pointed look at her husband. “Ask my family and they’ll tell you that I’m the God-fearin’est female who ever lived.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Chickory said.

“Amen, Son,” Samuel threw in.

Emala frowned. “You and me are havin’ words tonight when we’re alone.”

“What are you mad about now?”

“Nothin’.”

“Then why do you look fit to kick me?”

Nate couldn’t get over how much they squabbled. Emala was particular about things, and when they weren’t done to suit her, she let whomever displeased her know it. It made him appreciate Winona all the more. Oh, she lit into him now and again and nagged him on occasion, but mostly she let him do as he felt best without constantly criticizing him.

Randa clasped Nate’s hand. “You sure were wonderful, Mr. King.”

“I hardly did anything,” Nate assured her, and was puzzled when his wife grinned.

“You stood up to that buffalo as bold as could be.” Randa heaped on the praise. “The same as when you helped us against those slave hunters.”

“A man does what he has to.” Nate didn’t know what else to say. He tried to pull his hand back but she held on.

“You killed three of them to save us,” Randa gushed. “You were”—she stopped, searching for the right word—“magnificent.”

Emala snatched her daughter’s wrist. “Come on, girl.” She nearly yanked Randa off her feet. “Let’s get you back to the fire, where it’s safe.”

Nate watched them walk off and became aware that his wife was staring at him and still grinning. “What?”

“My, you are a handsome devil,” Winona said in her flawless English. She had a talent for learning languages that far surpassed his own.

“What are you talking about?”

“You do not see it, and it is right in front of your face.”

“What?”

“Is that the only word you know today?” Winona made a show of trying to remember something. “Now, let me see. What is it our daughter-in-law likes to say about men? Oh, yes.” She paused. “As blind as bats and as dumb as tree stumps.” She laughed gaily.

“Why is it,” Nate asked, “that women feel the need to talk rings around a man before they get to the point?”

“My point, dear husband, is that sweet Randa is smitten. Ever since you saved them from those slave hunters, her eyes follow you everywhere. Surely you’ve noticed?”

No, Nate hadn’t, and he decided to change the subject. “It’s too bad I didn’t kill all of them.”

“Why? Do you think the two who got away will make more trouble for the Worths?”

“I hope not. I hope they have the brains to leave well enough be. But Samuel told me there’s a bounty on their heads. Thousands of dollars. That pair might not give up.”

“What will you do if they come after us?”

“Need you ask?” Nate King said.