Only The Strong

Chapter Three

Emala Worth would tell you she wasn’t the bravest of souls. Truth was, Emala was timid. She was scared of so many things, she had lost count. Spiders, snakes, mice, rats, mosquitoes, bees, wasps, lightning, big dogs, bulls and even cows. She was afraid of horses, too, although she was gradually getting over her fear of them after weeks of riding across the prairie.

But one thing Emala couldn’t get over, one fear she couldn’t escape, was her dread of the wilderness. There was so much to be afraid of, it was as if the Good Lord deliberately put the wilderness there just to scare people to death. Bears, wolves, cougars, hostiles, you name it, the wild haunts crawled with them. And from what the Kings told her, the mountains weren’t any better.

Buffalo were at the top of Emala’s to-be-afraid-of list. They were so big and so hairy, and those horns were like swords. It didn’t help that they had bad tempers. She couldn’t help comparing them to her husband, who was prone to lose his temper now and again.

Emala’s heart had leaped into her throat at the sight of her precious daughter being menaced by that mean bull. Of all her many fears, her greatest was that she would lose one of her children. They were everything to her. It was partly out of love for Randa that Emala agreed to flee the plantation even though her heart wasn’t in it.

Some folks would say she was crazy. They would say that being a slave was the worst thing you could be. But being a slave was all Emala ever knew. She was born into slavery, just as her mother before her. To her, their small shack and pitifully few possessions were as good as life got, and she never hankered after more.

It helped that Emala had refuge in her faith. She believed in the Lord God Almighty. She’d read the Bible completely through and was proud of the feat. When her children were little, in the evenings she would read to them to instill her love of Scripture in them.

Leaving her Bible behind when they fled had been the hardest thing Emala ever did. She missed it. She missed it terribly. And now, winding along the Platte River, she grew sad with regret. So sad, she didn’t notice when her horse acquired a shadow.

“Is something the matter?”

Emala gave a start. “Mr. King! You about scared me out of a year’s growth.”

Nate was astride his big bay, his Hawken in the crook of his elbow. “You looked fit to cry.”

“I am,” Emala confessed. She explained, ending with, “I can do without a lot of things, but I can’t do without my Scripture.”

“Maybe I can help,” Nate offered. “Remember my little library I mentioned?”

“I surely do.” Emala had always wanted to own more books but what little money she earned back on the plantation went for more important things.

“I have a Bible. In fact, I have two. One was my mother’s. I brought it back with me from my last trip to New York City. The other one I bought in St. Louis. I had a third, a Bible that belonged to my Uncle Zeke, but I lost it when some men broke into our cabin.”

“They destroyed your Bible?”

“And all my other books. It took me a long time to replace them.”

“Any man who would do that to the Word of the Lord should be burned at the stake.” Emala paused. “Your Uncle Zeke, you say? Isn’t he the one who brought you out here? He was goin’ to teach you all there was to know about livin’ in the mountains, but then he went and died on you, right?”

“Uncle Zeke was killed by the Kiowas, yes. Fortunately, a friend of his came along and became my mentor, you might say. Shakespeare McNair.” Nate gazed up the trail. “The point of all this is that I have a Bible to spare. When we reach King Valley, I’ll give it to you.”

“Oh, I couldn’t take your Bible.” Emala was genuinely shocked. She was used to whites treating her pretty much as they treated their cattle. But Nate and Winona had been kind to them from the start. The Kings bought them clothes and weapons, and, wonder of wonders, not only offered to guide them to the Rocky Mountains, but invited them to come live in the same valley.

Emala never imagined white folks could be so nice. She’d noticed that Nate never cussed, which was a miracle in itself. It was her experience that cussing came as natural to men as breathing. Even her Samuel, no matter how much she nagged him, couldn’t control his tongue.

Then there was Winona. Emala had never met an honest-to-goodness Indian woman before. Somehow, Emala got it into her head that all Indians lived for, male and female, was to lift the hair of every white—and black—they came across. But Winona was about the sweetest lady Emala ever met, and about the strongest. No so much physically strong as strong inside. Emala envied her. She would have liked to be as strong, but it just wasn’t in her.

Suddenly Emala became aware Nate was still talking.

“…sitting on the shelf gathering dust. I’d be obliged if you would reconsider.”

“It might take us forever to repay you.”

“Who asked you to? It’s enough that the book will be in the hands of someone who appreciates it.” Nate smiled and reached out and touched her arm, then jabbed his heels and trotted on ahead.

“What a fine man,” Emala murmured.

Not ten seconds later Samuel took his place. “What were you two talkin’ about just now?”

“Why, Husband, you almost sound jealous,” Emala teased.

“Be serious, woman. What is there to be jealous about? Nate’s wife is the prettiest female I ever set eyes on. He’s not about to throw her over for the likes of you.”

Emala’s blood began to boil. “Please, no more compliments. I don’t think I can stand the praise.”

Samuel cocked his head. “Listen to yourself. You’re being silly. All I’m sayin’ is that Nate King is happy with the woman he’s got.”

“How about you?”

“Me? How did I get into this?”

“Are you happy with the woman you’ve got? Sometimes you don’t act like you are.”

Wagging a finger at her, Samuel said, “No, you don’t. You’re not turnin’ this around and blamin’ me for God knows what.”

“I wish you wouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. When we get to the pearly gates, He’s liable to turn you away.”

“Don’t start on me with your religion.”

“It’s your religion too. Or have you gone and given up on God just as you gave up on our life on the plantation?”

Samuel squirmed as if fit to burst. “If you call wantin’ a new and better life for my family giving up, then yes, I guess I gave up. Maybe you didn’t mind havin’ a yoke around your neck every minute of every day, but I did.”

“You always make it out to be worse than it was.”

“And you always make it out to be better. It’s just plain silly.”

“Well,” Emala said.

They were silent for a space, and then Emala said, “What’s happenin’ to us? We never argued this much before we became runaways.”

“I don’t rightly know,” Samuel admitted. “But it seems as if we can’t hardly talk anymore without fightin’.”

Emala was about to say that despite all their spatting, she still cared for him as deeply as ever, when she became aware that Nate King had stopped and raised an arm to signal them to do the same. “What is it, do you suppose?”

Nate said something to Chickory, who turned and whispered to Randa, who turned and whispered to Emala.

“Mr. King says there are a bunch of Indians yonder, and they might be hostiles.”

“Lordy!” Emala exclaimed in horror. She could practically feel the sharp sting of a knife slitting her throat from ear to ear. “Is there no end?”

Nate King heard her and almost turned to tell her to hush, but she fell quiet. He concentrated on the figures moving about in a clearing ahead. By their features and their scalp locks and how they had fashioned their buckskins, he determined they were Pawnees.

Considered a friendly tribe, the Pawnees were some of the first to venture east of the Mississippi River to visit the land of the white men. They were quick to see that trade with the whites was to their advantage. Years ago, Pawnee chiefs met with President Jefferson. Later on, about twenty of them paid President Monroe a visit and put on a war dance at the White House.

But for all their friendliness, the Pawnees had a dark side. They were known to practice human sacrifice. Young female captives were offered up to the morning star in the belief it brought good fortune.

Other tribes distrusted them, which was not unusual since many tribes were suspicious of one another. But distrust of the Pawnees ran particularly deep. They had a reputation for being bloodthirsty. There was even a Shoshone saying to the effect that a Pawnee would smile as he greeted you while stabbing you in the back.

“Do we go around?” Winona asked. She held her Hawken across her saddle with her thumb on the hammer and her finger on the trigger.

Nate counted nine Pawnees altogether. Since two were warriors and two were women and five were young ones ranging in age from ten about to about twenty, he reckoned it to be two families. They’d erected temporary shelters and were drying buffalo meat and curing hides.

Winona was looking about. “I only see these, but there could be others.”

Nate scanned both sides of the Platte. “I think it’s just them.”

Unlike other plains tribes, the Pawnees did not rely on the buffalo for their existence. They hunted the beasts now and then, but mostly they farmed. They raised squash and maize and beans and other crops.

“Do we go around?” Winona asked again.

Nate shook his head. He doubted the two warriors would do anything with their families there.

“I hope you know what you are doing.”

Nate hoped so, too. The last time he had dealings with the Pawnees, they tried to kill him. He gigged his bay, his Hawken at his side.

A young boy playing with a hoop made of sticks was the first to spot him, and shouted in alarm. Instantly, the two warriors grabbed rifles and moved in front of their wives and children to protect them.

Nate smiled to show he was friendly and called out in English, “We come in peace.” In Shoshone, on the off chance they understood it, he said, “We want to be friends.”

One of the warriors had streaks of gray in his hair and a seamed face that showed as clearly as words that he was a man who had seen and done much in his lifetime. His eyes glinted with intelligence. “We like peace, white man.”

Nate drew rein. Winona did likewise. Then the Worths emerged, and it was all Nate could do not to laugh.

The Pawnees were astounded. Their mouths fell, and the eyes of the young ones nearly bugged out of their heads. One of the women exclaimed something in the Pawnee tongue.

Nate reckoned they had never seen blacks before. He remembered when the Shoshones first set eyes on a black man, and how they touched his skin and his hair, marveling in childlike wonder at the difference between his and their own.

The warrior with the gray streaks bobbed his chin at the Worths. “These are the black white men I have heard of?”

Nate wasn’t sure how to answer that. “They are black, yes. They are not black whites. They are black blacks.”

“Petalesharo saw blacks many winters ago. He said they have hair like buffalo and their skin is like the night. Some of our people did not believe him, but now I see with my own eyes that he spoke true.”

Nate vaguely recalled hearing of a Pawnee warrior by that name who went east of the Mississippi to see “the great white Father.” “You speak the white tongue well.”

“I speak three. The tongue of my people, your tongue, and the French tongue.”

Nate realized that here was another linguist, like his wife. He had been shocked when he first discovered how much better she was at learning new languages. It was his fist true inkling of her keen intelligence. She was much more intelligent than he was. Yet she still loved him. Now, there was a miracle if ever there was one.

The Pawnee had gone on. “I have done much trading with whites. And a white man lived with my people two winters. He taught me much of your tongue.” The warrior drew himself up to his full height. “I am Pahaatkiwako. In your tongue I would be called Red Fox.”

“I’m called Grizzly Killer.”

Red Fox did not hide his sudden interest. “You are the white Shoshone? Your name is known among my people. You have killed many of the silver bears.” He paused. “You have killed Chaticks-si-Chaticks.”

Nate tensed. That was what the Pawnee called themselves. It meant “men of men,” or something like that. “I kill only those who try to kill me. The Pawnees I killed were trying to spill my blood. I hope you won’t hold it against me.”

For all of a half minute the issue hung in the balance. The warrior’s inscrutable face gave no clue to what he was thinking. Then he smiled and opened his arms wide, saying, “I am Pahaatkiwako of the Chaui, a Hunter, and I welcome you.”

Nate was relieved. If he recollected rightly, the Pawnees were divided into four clans, of which the Chaui were one, although he couldn’t remember what the word meant. He did know that the men further divided themselves into Hunters or Warriors. The former spent much of their time killing game to feed the mouths of their people, while the latter saw to village defense and went on frequent raids. “I am honored to meet you, Red Fox.” He introduced Winona and the Worths.

“My heart will be warm, Grizzly Killer, if you will share our fire this night. We have much meat and maize. You will not go hungry.”

Nate was tempted. They were making good time in their passage across the prairie. It wouldn’t hurt to stop early for once and spend an evening in pleasant company. He didn’t think for a moment that Red Fox was up to no good. And besides, he would take turns with Winona sitting up, just in case. “Let me put it to a vote.” Wheeling his bay, he asked, “What will it be?” His question was directed at the Worths.

Samuel answered first. “If you think it’s safe, Mr. King, we’ll do what ever you say is best.”

“It will be nice to meet other people,” Randa said.

Chickory was staring at a Pawnee girl about his age. She, in turn, was fascinated by his hair. “I don’t mind.”

Emala bit her lower lip. “I don’t know about this. Are you sure they’re friendly? They won’t scalp us in our sleep?”

Red Fox overheard, and chuckled. “We do not lift the hair of women. You need not fear.”

“In that case, if everyone else is for it, I’m for it, too.” Emala gave a nervous titter. “What harm can it do?”