“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.”