“I imagine he could do so.” ’Ring’s eyes had a distant look in them. “You once asked me where I learned to sneak about so quietly. It was from Jefferson Worth’s journals. My brothers and I used to pretend to be him and his men. I was always Jeff, my brother Jamie was Thomas Armour, and—”
“Thomas would like that.”
’Ring shook his head. “I can’t believe that these men are still alive and that I’m here with Jefferson Worth’s daughter. What was the Indian boy’s name? It was something odd. We used to fight over who got to play him.”
“Hears Good.”
“Right. He named himself that after your father took him east and he had an operation on his ears.”
Maddie smiled. The story was as familiar to her as though she’d been there with them. “He was deaf and my father took him east. After the operation he said in sign that he was now to be called Hears Good. Up until then he’d been called No Hears.”
’Ring was smiling, remembering. “And there was a woman, too, wasn’t there? Your father took the first white woman into the territory. She was to paint pictures of the Indians.”
“Yes.”
“My father bought one of her watercolors. It’s of a tribe I’d never heard of, but he and his men spent the winter with them.”
“Probably the Mandans. Smallpox nearly wiped them out two years after she painted them.”
He paused, thinking. “One of my Taggert cousins always played the woman, but there was something that we used to do to her that used to make her furious. What was it? It was something from the journals.”
“I would imagine one of you played Hears Good and stole from her.”
“That’s right. How could I have forgotten? Hears Good, because he was deaf, had never been able to steal because he couldn’t be quiet enough. But when he could hear he practiced his stealing on the woman painter. If I remember correctly, she got awfully angry.”
“But she got him back, remember?”
“No. I can’t think what she did.”
“One night after a strenuous day of traveling when Hears Good was hard asleep—he was only about twelve, you know—she sneaked up to him and stole everything he had, including his loincloth. When he woke up in the morning he was stark naked and everything was gone.”
’Ring smiled. “That’s right. I bet my cousin would have loved to pull that off, but she never did. But my brothers and I constantly sneaked around and stole what we could from each other. Wasn’t there something that happened in the end that made the woman forgive Hears Good?”
“Yes. My father and…the woman and Hears Good were separated from the others and a band of renegade Apaches up from the south came to spend the night with them. My father didn’t trust them, and it was a scary night. The three of them rode out early the next morning and the Apaches chased them and shot at them.”
’Ring’s face lit up as he remembered. “But Hears Good…”
Maddie smiled back at him. “Hears Good had practiced his stealing during the night and had stolen all their bullet molds. They had powder and lead but no way to make bullets. The three of them were able to get away because Hears Good had become such a good thief.”
’Ring laughed. “I guess over the years those journals have become like a myth to me. It’s difficult to believe that those things actually happened. Where are they all now? All the men who traveled with your father?”
“Actually, my father was one of the men who traveled with Thomas. Thomas was the leader and older and more experienced than my father. But they all live with my father now, and I grew up around them.”
“What were their names? Linquist the Swede who snowshoed in the winter and—”
“Skied. Linq skis.”
“Whatever. And the old man?”
“Bailey.”
“He couldn’t still be alive. He must be a hundred now.”
“Probably. He looks old enough to be Toby’s grandfather, but then, he always has. My father said he wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Bailey is only about twenty years old, but Bailey says that he’s been in the Rockies so long that the mountains were just hills when he arrived.”
“And Hears Good? How old is he now?”
“Hears Good is about forty. But, I don’t suppose he knows precisely, or cares.”