The Outcast w-60

by David Thompson

  “You’re about to tell him, I take it?”

  Louisa blinked. “Tell him what?”

  “Oh, come now.” McNair grinned. “You’re with child. It’s as plain as your rosy cheeks and the glow you share with the sun.”

  Lou shouldn’t have been surprised; McNair knew about her recent morning sickness. McNair and Nate King were best friends. McNair was so close to the family, in fact, that to this day Zach called him uncle. “Oh my. How many others know?”

  “Just about everybody except your husband. There are none so blind as those who can’t see past the nose on their face.”

  “That’s not another quote from William Shakespeare, is it?”

  “No, but it should be.”

  That was another thing Lou liked about McNair: his passion for the Bard. He had a big book of Shakespeare’s plays and quoted them by the hour. How he could recite it all was beyond her. She was lucky if she remembered a few quotes from the Bible.

  “So, am I right? Is this the night you drop fatherhood on his head and change his life forever?”

  “You make it sound like a millstone.”

  “I’m only saying it’s not to be taken lightly. It’s good you’re both ready for it.” Shakespeare paused. “You are both looking forward to having a baby, aren’t you?”

  “Well, it wasn’t as if we planned it,” Lou said, hedging. McNair had hit on the one thing that troubled her.

  “Tell me, and be honest. Have the two of you talked this over? What it means to be a parent? The changes the baby will bring?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “ ‘Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?’ ” Shakespeare quoted. “You haven’t said a word to each other, have you?”

  “Of course we have,” Lou said, a trifle indignantly. But the truth was, they’d talked about it only once, a short while back when she first thought she might be pregnant.

  “Good. No one should jump in a poison ivy patch unless they like to itch a lot.”

  “You’re comparing a baby to poison ivy? They have nothing in common.”

  “Tell that to a parent who has been up all night with a baby with the croup. Tell it to a parent who has to put up with all the caterwauling when a baby is teething. Tell it to a parent who has to change and wash diapers a thousand times. Tell it to a—”

  Lou held up a hand. “Dear Lord. You make a baby sound like an affliction.” She bent and lifted the bucket out of the water and Shakespeare immediately took it from her.

  “I’ll do the honors.”

  “Oh, please. I’m not helpless.”

  “Never said you were, girl. But a woman with a child in her brings out all the tenderness a man has. It’s a good thing, too. It makes up for all the times men go around with blinders on.”

  “For a man, you sure don’t think highly of your gender.”

  “Quite the contrary. I’m quite happy being male. The notion of being female scares me to death.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d have to put up with men.”

  Lou laughed gaily. She headed for the cabin and gazed at the timbered slope beyond just as a jay took wing, squawking loudly. She idly wondered if something had spooked it, then put it from her mind. She had more important things to think about.

  Up on the slope, the jay continued to squawk.

  Chapter Two

  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 abou
t 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.

  Chapter Three

  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.”