Seed of Evil

Chapter Thirteen

Raven On The Ground and the other three Crow maidens followed the white man known as Geist into the wooden lodge. She smiled to be polite and to hide how nervous she was. She had never been in the company of white men before, save for the few times whites had visited her village and once when Chases Rabbits brought Grizzly Killer to meet her. She liked Grizzly Killer. He was an adopted Shoshone and much like an Indian. He wasn’t strange, like other whites.

The man called Geist was smiling and being friendly, but he was strange, too. He talked too fast and he had an odd smell, and his smile didn’t touch his eyes.

Raven On The Ground definitely didn’t like the white called Dryfus. The very first time he looked at her, he ran his gaze down her body in a manner any woman would recognize. It was rude of him, and she did not like rude people. Unfortunately, Dryfus was the only white who knew sign, so she had to put up with him for the time being.

Geist had just finished showing them four small spaces enclosed in wooden walls. In each, blankets had been spread on upraised legs. Their purpose eluded her until Dryfus pointed at one of the areas and raised his hands.

Where you sit, he signed.

Raven On The Ground was appalled.

Dryfus pointed at each of the other enclosed spaces in turn, and at each of the other women, signing the same thing.

“Can this be?” Spotted Fawn said. “This is where they want us to live?”

“So it seems,” Raven On The Ground said. To make sure, she signed, Question. We sit long time?

Yes, Dryfus signed.

Lavender frowned. “I do not like this. Why have they covered the ground with wood? Where do we build a fire? And there is no hole above us for the smoke to go out.”

Flute Girl made it unanimous. “These whites do not know how to treat guests.”

Geist barked words at Dryfus and the latter signed, Question. Why you no happy?

Raven On The Ground signed that they would rather live in the kind of lodge they were accustomed to.

Through Dryfus, Geist responded that they would like it here after a while, that sleeping on the blankets on the raised legs was better than sleeping on the ground, and that they didn’t need a fire since the walls would keep them warm.

“The man is touched in the head,” Lavender said. “How will we cook if we cannot make a fire?”

Raven On The Ground put the question to the whites and was amazed when Dryfus signed that the whites would do the cooking for them.

“But I thought they brought us here to cook for them?” Spotted Fawn said.

So did Raven On The Ground. She put the question to Dryfus. He and Geist talked, and Dryfus signed that they could build a fire outside the wooden lodge.

“Only whites would have such empty heads,” Flute Girl said.

“What work do they expect of us?” Lavender wanted to know.

Raven On The Ground signed the query. The answer puzzled her. Dryfus signed that Geist would explain soon, and they both grinned as if it were some sort of joke. Until then, Dryfus signed, they were free to walk about as they pleased. He warned them not to stray too far from the lodge, for their own safety.

“Do they think we cannot take care of ourselves?” Flute Girl asked.

Geist and Dryfus left.

The four women looked at one another, at the wood walls, and at the wood over their heads.

“I am sorry I came,” Lavender said.

“We should not judge them too quickly,” Raven On The Ground advised. “The whites made this place for us thinking we would like it.”

“They should know better,” Spotted Fawn said. “It is like being in a cave made of wood.”

“We know how strange they are, so we should not be surprised,” Raven On The Ground said. “They have befriended our people and put their trust in us, so we should put our trust in them.”

“I cannot sleep in here,” Flute Girl declared. “When it grows dark I will go outside and sleep on the ground.”

“Me, too,” Lavender said.

Raven On The Ground was tempted to do the same. To take their mind off the shock of their dwelling, she proposed that they go to the trading post and see all the wonderful goods the whites had brought.

“That is one thing the whites know how to do,” Flute Girl said. “They know how to make the money they love so much.”

“Yes,” Raven On The Ground agreed. “They do.”

Chases Rabbits was having a bad moon. First it was the bear that tried to eat him. Now he had a worse problem. He was two days out from the mercantile and had at least three more of hard riding before he would reach King Valley. Suddenly he came to a crest dotted with firs and spotted a line of riders below. They were too far off for him to tell more than that they were warriors. He hoped they were Crows or maybe Shoshones, who were on good terms with his people. He hoped they weren’t Blackfeet or Piegans or Bloods, who would count coup on any Crow they came across.

As it turned out, they were something else. He was in the cover of the firs, watching the nine riders ascend, when the style of their hair and their faces sent a tingle of worry down his spine. They were Utes. They were far from their own land, and they were painted for war.

The Crows and the Utes weren’t at war with each other at the moment, but they weren’t friends, either. Chases Rabbits was glad they hadn’t spotted him. They would reach the crest a good arrow’s flight from where he was and go on their way none the wiser.

Then his pinto whinnied.

Immediately, several of the foremost Utes looked up, and one of them pointed at the shadows that concealed Chases Rabbits, yipping in the Ute tongue.

Chases Rabbits wheeled his pinto and fled. Should they catch him, there was no doubt what they would do: the same as Crows would do to captured Utes. He would be mutilated to test his manhood and then slain.

Whoops rose in a chorus and hooves pounded hard. The war party was after him.

Chases Rabbits fought down panic. His pinto was fast, but their horses could be faster. His capture seemed inevitable.

He flew down the other side, reining right and left to avoid trees and boulders and vaulting logs. He tried to calm himself so he could think clearly, but his heart hammered in his chest and his blood pulsed madly in his veins.

Chases Rabbits glanced over his shoulder. The Utes hadn’t appeared yet. He swept around a spruce and into a stand of alder. To his left down a short slope grew a dense thicket of chokecherries. The instant he spotted it, he reined down and in, his pinto crashing through the tangle with ease. When he had gone as far as he could throw a rock, he came upon a clear spot, drew rein, and jumped down. He could hear the Utes, but he couldn’t see them yet.

Quickly, Chases Rabbits grabbed the rope bridle and pulled while putting his foot against the pinto’s front leg and pushing. Quite a few moons ago, he had witnessed Nate King use the trick with his horse, and he had been trying to teach the pinto. Sometimes it cooperated. Sometimes it didn’t.

Right now it didn’t.

“Down!” Chases Rabbits urged, and pulled and pushed harder. The pinto balked.

Above them, the forest crashed with the sound of the onrush of warriors out for his blood.

“Down!” Chases Rabbits pleaded, and practically hung from the bridle by both hands. The pinto tucked at the knees. He pulled with all his might, and to his elation, the pinto lowered onto its side. He flung himself on top of it, his shoulders and head on its neck, and wrapped his fingers around its muzzle to keep it from whinnying.

Yipping and screeching, the Utes swept out of the trees and hurtled down the mountain. They passed so close that Chases Rabbits could have brought one down with his bow. Any moment he expected to be spotted. Then they were past and the forest swallowed them, and he released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Not until the hoofbeats faded to welcome silence did Chases Rabbits rise and pull the pinto erect. Swiftly mounting, he resumed his ride, only with more care. It wasn’t unheard of for war parties to split up when in enemy territory to be less conspicuous.

Where there were nine Utes, there might be more.