The Outcast (2 page)

The Outcast sat patiently on the pinto until the jay lost interest and flew away. Of all the birds, he liked jays least. Their shrill cries alerted everything within hearing. They were the bane of every hunter and warrior.

His brother used to argue that vultures were the worst birds because they ate rotting flesh and stank of death and were so ugly, but at least vultures were quiet.

The Outcast stared down the mountain. He could not tell much from that distance, but the white-haired man was plainly old and the sandy-haired woman, plainly young. He saw them talk and laugh and go into a wooden lodge.

A light jab of his heels sent the pinto down the slope. With a caution borne of experience, he rode slowly and hugged the shadows.

The Outcast was surprised to find whites so deep in the mountains, at least ten sleeps from the prairie, if not more. To his knowledge, no whites had ever penetrated this far.

He regarded white men much as he did jays. They were nuisances the world was better off without.

His first encounter with whites came when he was nineteen and went on a raid led by his uncle. Thirty warriors took part. They'd traveled south into the land of their longtime enemies the Nez Perce. But they were not fated to find a Nez Perce village. Instead they came upon a large party of bearded, hulking, coarse men with many horses and many beaver hides and many guns. The horses and the hides were incentive for his uncle to suggest they attack and kill the whites and take all they had, but the taking proved to be harder than any of them expected. They'd downed several of the whites with arrows and rushed in to slay the rest at close quarters. Only the whites drove them off, felling half a dozen warriors with their guns.

The Outcast had dragged his wounded uncle into the woods. There was a hole in his uncle's chest and a bigger hole in his back, and so much blood, it soaked the Outcast's leggings. His uncle had frothed at the mouth and was a while dying. The last words his uncle uttered was a plea to have his family looked after.

By then the whites had retreated to a cluster of boulders. The warriors tried to get at them, but the guns of the whites drove them back. Finally it was decided that too many had died, and they broke off the fight.

The Outcast learned important lessons that day. He learned that whites were not always easy to kill, and he learned to respect their guns.

Since then, the Outcast had fought whites on two other occasions. In one fight, the two sides had swapped arrows and lead, but nothing more came of it. In the other, the Outcast and six fellow warriors surprised four whites who were dipping pans in a stream and swirling the water around. It was most strange. But the whites had good horses and a lot of packs, and the Outcast had counted coup that day.

He never thought of whites as anything but enemies. They were like the Nez Perce, to be killed wherever he found them.

Now he came to a small clearing ringed by pines. Dismounting, he slid his bow and quiver from the sheath and glided lower. He must learn more about these whites. It wasn't wise to attack an enemy until you knew the enemy's strength. He wouldn't risk being seen until he was ready to be seen. He flattened himself on the ground about an arrow's flight from the wooden lodge.

The lodge, from what little the Outcast knew of the dwellings, was sturdily built. To one side was a pen for the horses. To the other were several small structures. In front of one of those were plump birds that clucked and pecked the ground. His mouth watered and his stomach growled as he imagined roasting the plumpest over a crackling fire.

Laughter came from within the lodge. The young woman must be goodnatured, he reasoned, to laugh so much. Everyone always told him whites were grim, but she wasn't.

From where he lay, the Outcast could see other dwellings across the lake. Smoke rose from only one. The wooden lodge at the west end and the long, low lodge to the east showed no signs of life. He wondered if they were empty, and if so, where the people who lived in them had gone.

Presently a rectangle of wood opened and out came the old man and the young woman. The woman was smiling and happy. The old man placed a hand on her shoulder and said something in the white tongue that caused her to touch her belly and to shake her head. Then the old man kissed her on the forehead and went off around the lake. When he looked back, the woman waved, and he waved back.

The Outcast speculated that maybe the old man was her father.

Still holding her belly, the young woman walked to the water's edge and stood, staring across the lake. The wind fanned her hair, and she idly brushed at stray wisps.

She interested the Outcast, this woman. She was small and dainty, as the woman he never thought about had been, and she had a grace about her that he found appealing. The thought jarred him. He must remember who he was and what she was and not let her stir his feelings. He had given up the right to feel long ago.

Just then, to the west, someone yelled. The woman turned and smiled and ran to meet a young man who carried a dead grouse over his shoulder. They embraced with much passion, and the woman kissed him on the mouth. Together they moved toward the wooden lodge.

The Outcast dug his fingers dug into the earth until his knuckles were pale. Here was another reminder of the life he once had lived. He'd had a wife and a lodge, and been full of joy.

His eyes narrowed. There was something unusual about the young man. He'd taken him for a red man, but now that he was closer, the Outcast saw that her husband was a half-breed. Yet another surprise. He'd been told that whites didn't like breeds.

Not that it mattered.

Right then and there the Outcast made up his mind.

He was going to kill them.

Zach King couldn't believe the fuss his wife was making over supper. She insisted he wash up after he plucked and butchered the grouse, and made him don his best buckskins. She put a vase of those yellow flowers she liked on the table. She brought out her precious china and her fancy silverware. She even put a candle in the center of the table and lit it.

“Are we having company?” It was the only explanation Zach could think of. She never went to this much bother any other time. “Did you invite Shakespeare and Blue Water Woman?”

Louisa was spooning potato soup into a bowl. She had changed into her one and only dress, which she had sent for out of a catalog and picked up at Bent's Fort the last time they were there. “No. But he did stop by today and asked if you wanted to go hunting with him tomorrow.”

“What is he going after? Did he say?”

Lou shook her head. “Why don't you have a seat, kind sir, and I'll bring the food over.”

“I can help,” Zach offered, although he really didn't want to. He considered cooking and the like woman's work. He offered only because if he didn't now and then, she carped that he never helped around the cabin.

“Not tonight. Tonight I'll wait on my lord and master.” Lou wanted him in fine spirits when she broke the news.

Zach pulled out the chair at the end of the table and sat. He was troubled. She never treated him like this unless she wanted something. Women were devious that way. They used their wiles to trick men into doing things the man wouldn't ordinarily do. He must be on his guard.

Bubbling with contentment, Lou brought over a steaming bowl of potato soup. She placed it in front of him and stepped back, smiling. “Here you go. Whites call this an appetizer. I know you like potato soup a lot. I added extra butter, too, just like you always want.”

“Thank you.” Zach picked up his spoon. He had taken several sips when he realized she was still standing there, watching him. “What's wrong?”

“I want to be sure you like it.”

“I like it very much.” Zach had learned early in their marriage never to say he disliked her cooking. Either it crushed her so that she sulked for days, or else it made her so mad, she went around slamming doors and giving him looks that would wither rock.

“Good.” Lou beamed. Men were always in better frames of mind when they had full stomachs. She remembered her grandmother saying that the way to a man's heart was through his gut, and her grandmother had been right.

Zach swallowed more soup, and when she didn't move, he tactfully suggested, “Why don't you get a bowl and join me?”

“Oh. Sure. Sorry.” Lou ladled only a little into her bowl. She wasn't all that hungry. The butterflies in her tummy were to blame. Taking the chair across from him, she took a tiny sip. “This is nice.”

“I told you I liked it.”

“No, not the soup. This.” Lou motioned at the table and at them and at the room. “Our cabin. Our home. It's nice that we have four walls and a roof over our heads.”

Zach deemed that a silly thing to say. Certainly it was nice. It beat sleeping in the rain and the snow.

“Who would have thought it would come to this.”

“That we'd have a cabin? You told me you wanted one before we were married.” Many times, Zach could have added but didn't.

“No, I didn't mean that. I meant us.”

Zach was confused. They were man and wife. They lived together. That was the way of things. He decided not to say anything and devoted himself to his soup. No sooner did he swallow the last spoonful than Lou was at his elbow, taking the empty bowl.

“Now for the main course.”

Zach marveled at how much time she must have spent cooking and baking. There was the roasted grouse. There were carrots and baked potatoes. There was gravy. There was freshly baked bread with butter. “It's not Christmas, is it?” he joked.

“I just wanted to show you how much I love you, how much you mean to me.”

Zach's mental guard went up again. “I love you, too, Louisa. There was no need to go to all this bother.”

“Love is never a bother. Love is love.”

Zach fidgeted in his chair. There she went again with another silly remark.
Of course
love was love. What else would it be? He ate in silence. When he finished the main course he was close to bursting. She brought over a thick slice of apple pie, and he sniffed it, savoring the scent. It was another of his favorites.

Lou sat back down and folded her hands in front of her. She waited until he forked a piece into his mouth, then cleared her throat. “How do you feel?”

“Like a snake that has swallowed a bird and is so swollen, it can't hardly move.”

Lou didn't think much of his comparison, but she smiled and said, “Just so you're happy.”

“I am.”

“I want you to always be happy. I want
us
to always be happy. I want our children to be happy, too.”

About to fork another piece into his mouth, Zach looked at her. He remembered how lately she had been sick in the morning. Suddenly the feast fit for a king took on a whole new meaning. “You're with child.”

Lou smothered a frown. She'd wanted to break the news, not have it broken to her. “You don't have to say it quite like that. But yes, I am.” She waited, and when all he did was bite the piece of pie off the fork, she goaded him with, “Well?”

“Well, what? You must take care of yourself. Don't lift heavy things. Don't eat a lot of sugar. Stuff like that.”

Lou waited again, then said, “That's all you have to say?”

“What else? I'll need to make a cradle. Or maybe my pa will let us have the one they used for me and my sister. We'll tell them as soon as they get back. My ma can give you advice on all kinds of female stuff.”

“That's all you can think of?”

Zach was uneasy. Her tone warned him that she was on the brink of anger, and he had no idea what he had done. “I'm right pleased. We've talked about having a baby and now we will.”

“All you are is pleased? You're not giddy with excitement? You're not wonderfully happy?”

“Of course.” Zach was none of that. But if saying he was kept her content, he would pretend.

“I mean, I go to all this trouble. I break the greatest news a wife can break to her husband, and you sit there and tell me you have to build a cradle.”

“Do you want the baby to sleep on the floor?”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“All right. The bed, then?”

“Where the baby will sleep isn't the issue. The issue is how you reacted to the news.”

“Be reasonable. It's not as if it was a huge surprise.”

“A child is taking shape inside me as we speak. The miracle of new life. The greatest thrill we will ever know. And you sit there as if I just told you a weasel got one of the chickens.”

“If a weasel got a chicken, I'd be mad. I'm not mad.”

“You're not glad, either. Don't deny you're not. I can see it in your eyes.”

Forgetting himself, Zach replied, “Don't tell me how I feel or how I don't feel. I should know better than you, and I tell you, I'm happy.”

“Oh, Stalking Coyote.”

Zach inwardly winced. She used his Shoshone name only when she was upset. She confirmed her distress by doing the one thing he couldn't stand for her to do.

Louisa burst into tears.

Shakespeare McNair cleared his throat. “ ‘To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of trouble, and by opposing, end them.' ”

Blue Water Woman looked up from her knitting. She was in the rocking chair, by the window. He was at the table honing his ax. If she had asked him once, she had asked him a thousand times not to hone his ax at the table. He always got tiny flakes all over. But did he listen? No. He was a man.

“Is there a point, or were you talking to hear yourself talk again?” Her English was excellent. She didn't speak it quite as well as Winona King, but she took great pride in how well she had mastered it. For a Flathead, the white tongue was as strange as a tongue could be.

Shakespeare harrumphed and stopped honing. “Did you just accuse me of being in love with the sound of my own voice?”

“What is it that whites say?” Blue Water Woman smiled sweetly. She wore a soft doeskin dress and moccasins. Her black hair, lightly streaked with gray, hung past her slender shoulders. “If the shoe fits…”

“A pox on thee, wench.” Shakespeare bristled, and quoted the Bard, “ ‘I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way.' ”

“There was a point to your
Hamlet,
then?”

“There is always a point to old William S.,” Shakespeare informed her. “I was suggesting you might want to go over and talk to Lou tomorrow. She's breaking the news to Zach tonight, and I expect a storm cloud or three.”

Blue Water Woman set the woolen cap she was making him in her lap. “That was your idea of suggesting I go see her? To be or not to be?”

“I thought it quite clever.”

Letting out an exaggerated sigh, Blue Water Woman said, “I hear there are husbands who make sense when they talk. Husbands who use their own words and do not recite the words of a man who lived so long ago no one else remembers him.”

Shakespeare slapped down the file. “Don't remember him?” he sputtered. “I'll have you know, woman, that he has been called the soul of his age. His writing is to words what flowers are to a mountain meadow.”

“Perhaps it is best you recite him. Your own words make even less sense than his.”

“ ‘Thou art so leaky, we must leave thee to thy sinking,' ” Shakespeare countered.

“I am a boat now?”

Shakespeare smiled in anticipated triumph and declared, “If there is a purpose to women, I have yet to find it.”

“Is that what you were doing with me last night in bed? Looking for my purpose?”

Shakespeare felt his face redden and burst out laughing. “Oh, that was marvelous. Your best yet. I swear, jousting with you is the most fun I know.” He paused. “Next to what we were doing in bed, of course.”

“You
are
male.”

Coughing, Shakespeare changed the subject. “About Lou. She doesn't know Zachary like I do. They're apt to have an argument.”

“I should think she knows her own husband.” Just as Blue Water Woman knew hers and his fondness for butting into the affairs of others. To his credit, he always did it with the best of intentions.

“She's known him a few years. I've known Zach since he popped out of his mother and was swaddled in a blanket. I predict he won't take the news quite as merrily as Lou expects. So maybe you should go over and see if everything is all right. What with Nate and his other half gone, Lou has no one else to talk to.”

“Wait a minute. Did you just say he
popped
out of Winona?”

“That might have been the term I used, yes.”

“Babies do not
pop.
They are born. Giving birth can be hard on a woman. She goes through much pain, and if the birth does not go as it should, she can die.”

“All right.
Popped
was a poor choice. Would
plunked
be better?”

“If I had a stick, I would beat you.”

“Just so long as after you're done, you go and visit Lou. I'm supposed to go hunting with Zach, and I'll sound him out about his feelings.”

Blue Water Woman picked up her knitting, but didn't move the needles. “Do you ever regret that we have not had children?”

“If we had gotten together when we were Zach and Lou's age, then probably I would, yes.” Shakespeare sighed. He had courted her back when they were that age. Her father, who didn't want any daughter of his taking up with a white man, forbade her to see him. Shakespeare had been crushed, but there was nothing he could do. They were forced apart, and later, both of them met and married someone else. Decades went by. Both their spouses died. They met again and discovered they still loved each other as passionately as ever. When he thought of all the years they could have had together but didn't, it was enough to moisten his eyes.

“Husband?”

Shakespeare realized she had been talking while he was adrift in their past. “Eh? What's that, my pretty?”

“I said we could adopt a child if you wanted.”

“Land's sake. At our age?” Shakespeare chuckled, then shook his head. “As much as I might like to, this old coon's bones and joints aren't what they used to be. A two-year-old would waddle rings around me.”

“I doubt that,” Blue Water Woman said tenderly. “You can waddle quite fast when you put your mind to it.”

“If that was a compliment, I'm a goat.”

“Only when you are looking for my purpose. And to set your mind at ease, tomorrow I will go see Louisa. I will pretend I am there to borrow sugar so she will not feel like I am prying.”

“A marvelous idea. My pa used to say that the best way to deal with a problem is to nip it in the bud, before it becomes a problem.”

“Wise advice.”

Shakespeare nodded. “The only thing is, some problems you can't nip in the bud. You never see them coming.”

Under the cloak of night the Outcast came down the slope and stood at the edge of the trees. He stared across an open space at the wooden lodge. He had never been this close to a white lodge before; it intrigued him. There had been no sign of a dog, so he felt safe crouching and crossing the open space, but he went slowly and with a hand on the hilt of his knife. He paused often to listen.

The horses in the corral were dozing. He stayed downwind to keep them from catching his scent. The small structure that housed the clucking birds was dark and quiet. He slipped past it and around to a square of glowing glass. Some sort of cloth had been hung over it on the inside, but there was a gap between the cloth.

His nerves tingling, the Outcast crept forward until he could reach out and touch the lodge if he wanted. It was made of hewn logs, one on top of the other, the niches caulked with what appeared to be clay. He inched higher, until his eye was at a corner of the glass, and peered inside.

The breed and the young woman were sitting on a strange wooden seat next to a large piece of wood on four wooden legs. The breed appeared to be upset. The young woman was weeping.

It shocked the Outcast so much, he ducked back down. The last time he saw a woman cry had been the terrible day that changed his life. The day that got him banished from his tribe. He wondered what the breed had done to make her shed tears. Then he remembered that sometimes women did not need a reason. They just cried to cry.

The Outcast cautiously took another peek. The breed was talking in low tones. The young woman had her head bowed. She answered him, but so softly, the Outcast barely heard her words.

For some reason the Outcast could not take his eyes off them. He had not been this near to people, except for the three warriors who tried to kill him, in many moons. He had not been this near to a woman…he did not like to think how long that had been. He stared at her, at her sand-colored hair and slight frame and the tears trickling down her cheeks, and he felt a strange stirring. His throat constricted, and he almost made the mistake of coughing to clear it.

The Outcast did not understand what was happening to him.

The young woman looked up, and seldom had the Outcast seen such sadness. She was in the throes of torment. He wished he knew the white tongue. Maybe then he could make some sense of what she was saying. Whatever it was, it upset the breed even more. The breed suddenly stood and leaned on the table and said something almost savagely, then turned and moved away from the window.

Too late, the Outcast heard the scrape of wood. The half-breed was coming out. Quickly, the Outcast retreated to the opposite corner and crouched. He drew his knife. He was ready to kill the breed if the man came close. He considered whether to stalk him and kill him anyway.

Then a horse nickered and stamped.

The Outcast had forgotten about the horses. His back was to the corral, and whirling, he saw that a sorrel had its head high and its ears pricked and was looking right at him. He had been careless. He figured the breed would investigate. Staying low, he ran toward the trees, but he went only a short way and dived flat. Hidden in the veil of darkness, he waited. But the breed still did not appear.

Puzzled, the Outcast crawled in a wide loop. Finally he spotted a silhouette at the water's edge. The breed was pacing back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back. The Outcast was surprised to hear him muttering to himself. Men should not mutter. Women, yes, but not warriors. He reminded himself that whites were not warriors and this breed was half white.

The breed was so engrossed, it would be easy to crawl close and slay him. The Outcast was tempted. Then the rectangle of wood opened again and out came the young woman. She crossed to the breed and quietly addressed him.

The Outcast wanted to see their expressions. He could tell more if he could see their faces. He had to gauge their feelings by the way they said their words. The young woman said them sadly. The breed responded angrily. Suddenly the young woman cried out, threw her arms wide, and embraced him, sobbing. He embraced her, and for a long while they stood still and were silent save for the young woman's sniffling.

Again the Outcast felt that strange constriction in his throat. It troubled him. He watched, and wondered why he did not rise up and rush them. He would be on them before they realized he was there. Two strokes of his blade and the deeds would be done. But he didn't rise. He stayed flat on the ground.

The pair moved slowly toward their lodge. They exchanged a few soft words. The breed dabbed at the young woman's face with his sleeve, and she laughed.

The Outcast remembered how another woman, in another time, once laughed as merrily, and his insides churned.
I am a worm,
the Outcast thought, and closed his eyes. He must not think about her. He must not think about her. He must never, ever think about her. The image faded, and the Outcast was relieved. It bothered him, this new weakness. The young white woman was to blame. Something about her was affecting him. But why that should be mystified him.

The rasp of the wood flap closing brought the Outcast out of himself. The pair were back inside.

The Outcast frowned and made for the woods. When he came to the pinto, he climbed on and rode around the west end of the lake, past a dark, quiet lodge.

The south shore was bordered by the grassy valley. There was no cover except the grass, but that was enough for the Outcast. He left the pinto in the trees and crawled toward the other lodge with glowing glass. Once again he reached the lodge without being detected. Once again he put his eye to a corner of the glass. Inside was the old white man with hair the color of snow, and one other. That it was a woman did not surprise him; that she was an Indian, did.

At first the Outcast took her for a Nez Perce, but as he studied her features and her hair and her dress, he changed his mind. She was a Flathead. His tribe had had few dealings with them, and those they had were always at the point of a lance or a knife. He guessed that she had seen at least fifty winters, but he never had been good at judging the age of women. This one was uncommonly attractive and possessed a grace and dignity that impressed him.

The Outcast wondered if the white man had bought her. That happened sometimes among other tribes. The Crows, he had heard, made a habit of it. But then the Crows had their minds in a whirl. It was said that women ruled their tribe, which had made the men of his own tribe laugh. It was also claimed that Crow men used the women in common and that the Crows took their women by stealing them, which made no sense. Why steal a woman if you were going to let other men have her? Maybe it wasn't true. Rumors about other tribes were not always based on fact.

The white hair moved out of sight of the window, and the Outcast tensed, thinking he was coming outside. But no, the man reappeared holding something the Outcast had never seen before. He did not know what to make of it. It was square, and consisted of many white sheets with blacks marks on them. The white man opened it and then began talking in a loud voice, with much gesturing.

The woman rolled her eyes. She sat in a marvelous thing that rocked back and forth. She was using long metal needles to weave a garment. She said something that caused the old man's cheeks to grow red.

Then both of them grinned.

The Outcast realized they were very much in love, these two. He remembered the time he had been in love, and was mad at himself.

He had seen enough.

The Outcast ducked down and left. Apparently there were only the two men and the two women in the entire valley. Whoever lived in the other lodges must be gone, or the lodges would be aglow with light.

The Outcast had gone a short way toward the trees when there was a tremendous splash in the lake. He looked, imagining it was a fish, but whatever it was had gone back under, leaving ripples.

Once on the pinto, the Outcast reined to the west. He would spend the night deep in the timber. He must get plenty of sleep. Although he had been banished from his tribe, he had not stopped being a warrior. He still counted coup.