Seed of Evil

Chapter Ten

Well after night had settled in, and long after the last of the Indians had left, Geist and Petrie walked from the mercantile to the new building that from the outside resembled a stable. It didn’t have double doors, as a barn or stable would, but only a single door that Geist opened and strode through.

Dryfus, Gratt, and Berber were already there. Dryfus pushed his floppy hat back on his head and said, “What do you think?”

Instead of stalls for horses, there were four rooms just big enough for a bed and a stand for a lamp. They had made the beds from planks and used blankets for a mattress.

Geist went from room to room and nodded in satisfaction. “It’s not much, but it will serve our needs.”

“Are four beds enough?” Berber asked.

“We could put two beds to a room,” Gratt suggested. “Do twice the business.”

“All you think of is filling your poke,” Geist said. His face hardened. “Or is it you’d rather run things?”

Gratt thrust out both hands and vigorously shook his head. “Hold on. I never said any such thing. I just remember how it was in Missouri when you crammed them in like apples in a barrel.”

“We start slow and build,” Geist said. “A year from now we could have three beds to a room. It all depends.”

The door opened and Toad filled the doorway. He came in and looked at each of the rooms, then came back again to stand in front of Geist. “I am against this.”

“I don’t give a damn what you are against,” Geist said, and the others laughed and sneered.

“This wasn’t what I thought you meant when you approached me in St. Louis.”

“If I’d told you I was coming west to set up the first Indian whorehouse, would you have taken us on?” Geist scornfully asked.

“Of course not.”

“There you go.” Geist indicated the door. “Go back to your precious mercantile and don’t butt in again.”

“This is wrong,” Toad said.

“Oh, hell,” Geist said.

“You’ll ruin everything! I’m trying my best to earn their trust, and you’ll bring it all crashing down.”

Petrie leveled his rifle. “Want me to take him back and see that he stays there?”

“No need.” Geist glared at Toad and poked him in the chest. “You listen to me, you dumb bastard. All you are to me is a means to an end. I’ll make more money in one month from my whores than you’ll make in six months from your store.”

“The Crows won’t like it. They’ll massacre us.”

Geist was growing angry. He put a hand on his pistol. “Shows how much you know, Levi. When a stranger visits a Crow village, guess what he’s allowed to have for the night if he wants one?”

“You’re not implying…” Toad began.

“I sure as hell am. They let the stranger have a female for the night. Now think about that. If they let a man have a woman for free, why in hell would they raise a ruckus over their women parting their legs for money?”

“Maybe because the women would be doing it for you and you’re white.”

“So? The Crows are almost as friendly to whites as the Shoshones. And besides, we’ll be greasing the wheel with gifts to that idiot Chases Rabbits and to their chiefs.” Geist tapped his temple. “I have it all figured out.”

“I still don’t like it, Ranton.”

“The name is Geist now. And if you ever talk to me like this again, I’ll have Petrie blow out your wick.”

“With pleasure,” Petrie said.

Louisa King came out of their cabin and saw her husband by the lake with a storm cloud on his brow. She went past the chicken coop and their cow. “What are you doing out here, as if I can’t guess?”

“I should go back,” Zach said.

Lou fluffed her sandy hair and put her hand on his arm. “You brood better than anyone I know.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t get prickly on me. You’ve been there once with Touch The Clouds and Drags The Rope and you all agreed those traders are treating the Indians properly. But you’re still not happy.”

“I can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right.”

“What’s not right,” Lou said, “is you getting worked up when there’s nothing to get worked up about. And you have something more important to focus on.” She took one of his hands and placed it on the swell of her belly.

Zach smiled and squatted and put his ear to her. “Can you feel it move?”

“It?” Louisa said. “You’re calling our son or daughter an it?”

“We haven’t picked names yet.”

“It’s still not an it.”

Lou then realized what she had said, and laughed. Zach chuckled and caressed her stomach.

“Our first child. I can’t wait.”

“Well, it’ll be months yet, so don’t hold your breath.” Lou embraced him as he straightened and hugged him with all her strength. “I’m so happy and I’m so scared.”

“Scared?”

“What if something goes wrong? We’re in the middle of the mountains. There’s no sawbones for a thousand miles.”

“Now who’s brooding?” Zach teased. “You have my mother and Blue Water Woman to help. Everything will be fine.” He kissed her.

“A woman can’t help worrying. To have a new life come out of me…” Lou looked down at herself. “It’s a miracle.”

“Pa says they were some of the greatest moments of his life, when my sister and I popped out.”

“You did not just say popped.”

“Slid, then? Or is it squeezed out? Or maybe pushed? Whatever it is you women do.”

“You’ll see for yourself.”

“What?”

Louisa raised his hand and pecked his palm. “I want you there with me.”

“You want me in the room with you when the baby is born?”

“You’re the father, aren’t you? What a ridiculous question.” Lou grinned. “You’ll be there holding me and comforting me.”

“But you’ll be…” Zach stopped.

“I’ll be what?”

“You know. On your back with your legs, well…”

Lou giggled. “You’ve seen me that way plenty of times. It’s how I got this way to begin with.”

“That’s not what I meant. The baby will be coming out, and all that other stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“I’ve seen horses give birth and other animals. All that wet and the smell.”

Lou put her hands on her hips. “Zachary King, how dare you? You are my husband and you will be there for me, smell or no smell.”

“Now who’s being prickly?”

“What I am is eating for two and we are out of fresh meat. So why don’t you take your rifle and go off hunting and think about how it makes me feel when you talk about me as if I’m a horse.”

“I never said that.”

Lou wheeled around and stalked toward the cabin, muttering, “Men are the most aggravating creatures on God’s green earth.”

Louder, Zach repeated, “I never said that!” But she paid him no mind. “Women!” He kicked a rock and it clattered a few feet.

The dun was in the corral attached to their cabin. Zach threw on a saddle blanket and saddle, fitted the bridle, and mounted up. He rode north into the dense woods. At this time of day, the deer were lying up in the brush. He knew just where to find some.

As Zach rode, he pondered. He supposed he was being unduly suspicious about the trading post or mercantile or whatever Toad wanted to call it. But he couldn’t shake a feeling deep in his gut that those men were more than they seemed. Call it a hunch. Call it instinct. Something was bothering him.

The sharp call of a grosbeak brought Zach out of his brooding thoughts. A little farther on, a gray squirrel chittered at him from a high branch.

Zach stayed alert for deer. There was plenty of sign. A jumble of prints showed where the deer went regularly to the lake to drink. He also came across old beds, some with the strong reek of urine.

A magpie flew overhead, distinctive with its white underparts and uncommonly long tail. Where there was one, there were usually more, although they made solitary domes high in the trees when they nested.

Zach breathed deep, savoring the rarefied air, and grinned. He did so love the mountains, or any wilds, for that matter. He had been born and bred in the wilderness, as the whites would say, and he was supremely glad. He had been to towns and cities and couldn’t stand them. Not that he had anything against people. He didn’t like how city life hemmed a man in, how stone and brick replaced the trees and grass, how a man could hardly go anywhere without being under the watchful scrutiny of others. There was barely any privacy, and what little there was came only when a person locked himself in a room.

That wasn’t for Zach. Give him the wide-open spaces where a man could ride for hours or days or even weeks, if he was of a mind, and not see another living soul.

Ahead the forest thinned. Zach rode out of the shadows into the bright sunlight of a meadow—and drew rein.

Not fifty feet away was a wolf.