Francis thought a minute, then shook his head. “My mother always called me Alphonse, and my father called me Francis. I guess you can take your pick.”

The trapper shook his head. “I’m sorry, and nothing against your folks, understand, but I don’t like either of them. They don’t hit my tongue right. Tell you what. My name is Jason Grimes. You call me Mr. Grimes, and I’ll call you Mr. Tucket—that should keep us both happy. Is that all right with you?”

Francis shrugged. “Suits me fine, Mr. Grimes.”

“Good. Now then, Mr. Tucket, why don’t you hobble your crippled body over here and have a sip of coffee? There’s nothing like a touch of coffee to take the sharp edge off an empty belly. After that I’ll give you a little venison jerky, and while you’re chewing that you can tell me how you came to be the son of that old Pawnee lady.”

Francis had tried coffee before, stolen from his mother’s stove with sugar in it and he took some in a gulp. It was bitter and he nearly spit it out. But the heat of it felt good and seemed to take away some of the ache in his stomach.

The jerky was as tough as an old boot. While he chewed it—and it took some chewing—he told Mr. Grimes about the adventure, starting with the wagon train and the rifle.

He finished his tale by telling how Braid had thrown the doll down in front of him.

Mr. Grimes nodded when Francis finished. “That Braid is a mean one. Back before I made friends with the Pawnees by bringing them powder and lead every time I came through, Braid and I had one bush-ripper of a fight. Knives, hatchets—the whole works. I guess it lasted over an hour, and when it was done, he had one scar down his back and I had lost an arm.”

“You mean Braid took your arm off?” Francis asked.

“No, he just cut it good. But it got infected later and I had a doctor in St. Louis whack it off before it poisoned my whole body. It makes for some pretty tight talking whenever I come into his village. Braid hasn’t forgotten his scar a bit, and every time I come in he asks me to wrestle. Oh, and speaking of wrestling, I’ve got something for you. Won it from Braid yesterday wrestling—he made the mistake of tying one arm behind his back to make the fight more fair. He was too stupid to realize that I get a lot of all kinds of practice with only one arm, so I whipped him pretty easy.”

As he talked, Mr. Grimes went to his saddle and pulled out a blanket wrapped around something. He carefully unrolled the blanket and handed Francis his rifle, mold, powder, and caps.

“My rifle!”