The Outcast

Chapter Five

Shakespeare McNair whistled as he rode. The sun was shining in a bright blue sky, birds were singing in the trees, and the lake was a picturesque playground for mallards, geese, mergansers, and other water fowl. All was right with the world, and he liked his world that way.

Shakespeare rode slowly. His white mare, like he, was getting on in years. He had thought about getting another horse and letting her while away her days in the corral, but she was like him in another regard—she liked to get out and around, and became downright ornery if she was cooped up too long. In that respect, she also reminded him of a certain Flathead lady he knew. He chuckled at the thought.

Shakespeare passed Nate and Winona’s cabin and rose in the stirrups to stare intently at the dwelling of their elder offspring and daughter-in-law. All appeared tranquil. Smoke curled from the chimney. The chickens were pecking. He gathered that everything was all right. He hoped so. He dearly adored both Zach and Lou, and regarded them as family. The boy had been calling him uncle since he could toddle.

Shakespeare drew rein a dozen feet out. “Hail the cabin!” he hollered. “Are you decent in there?”

The door opened, framing Lou. She had on a dress and an apron, and her hands were on her hips. “What else would we be at this time of day? That is not all women think about, unlike some men I could mention.”

“Now, now,” Shakespeare said. “He can’t help it. At his age, most males are randy as goats.”

“I was talking about you.”

“Me?” Shakespeare declared in mock indignation. “Why, I’m scandalized. I’ll have you know, young lady, that at my age women are not the beall and end-all. Waking up in the morning is.”

“That’s not what Blue Water Woman told me.”

“How’s that?”

“We were at Winona’s not long ago and your darling wife happened to mention that she can’t hardly get her housework done for you pawing her all the time.”

Shakespeare’s indignation was no longer mock. “She said that? The wench! Her kisses are Judas’s own children. There’s no more faith in her than in a stewed prune.”

Laughing, Lou came outside. She squinted against the glare of the sun and ran her hands down her apron. “A man your age, I should think you would be flattered.”

“A man my—!” Shakespeare put a hand to his chest as if stricken. “What have I done, child, that you prick me so? Am I remiss in my bathing? ‘Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love,’ ” he quoted.

“Now, now. Don’t get all pouty. Your wife loves you as dearly as she loves anything and would never say something that would hurt your feelings.”

“Too late for that,” Shakespeare huffed. “ ‘You cannot make gross sins look clear.’ ” He lowered his hand. “But we’ll drop it for now. I’ll take this up with her when I get back.”

“Don’t you dare. She’ll ask how you found out.”

“I’ll lie.”

“She’s too smart for that. Sometimes I think she’s the smartest person in our valley. She’ll figure out that since only Winona and I knew, and Winona is gone, it had to be me.”

“And what of me, child?” Shakespeare asked. “Have I no brain? Aren’t I as intelligent as my wife?”

“Oh, I am sure you are,” Lou hastily assured him. “But smart is not the same thing as intelligent.”

“Since when? That’s like saying a scrambled egg isn’t the same thing as an egg cooked with the yolk staring at you. They are both eggs.”

To Lou the distinction was obvious. “Intelligent is when you have a really good brain. Smart is when you know how to use it.”

“Dear Lord. Now I’m twice stricken.” Shakespeare drew his knife and held it out to her, hilt first. “Here. Stab true and put an end to my misery.”

“Oh, please. You’re smart, too. Now quit acting silly and climb down. I’m baking a cake.”

“Celebrating something, are we?” Shakespeare asked, and grinned and winked. “Did it go as well as you seem to suggest?”

Lou happily nodded. “It went fine.” She placed her hand flat on her apron and looked down at herself. “He’s made his peace with the idea of being a father.”

“I knew he would. I have confidence in that boy.” Shakespeare launched into another quote. “ ‘The youngest son of Priam, a true knight, not yet mature, yet matchless. Firm of word, speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue.’ ”

From inside the cabin came a chuckle. “Lordy. If I have to put up with that all day, I might as well stay home.” Zach strolled out, his Hawken cradled in the crook of an elbow. “My wife tells me you want to go hunting.”

“That I do, Horatio Junior,” Shakespeare confirmed. “A black bear has been sniffing around our cabins of late, and unfortunately for him or her, as the case might be, my wife would like a new bearskin rug.”

“I’ve been seeing bear sign, too,” Zach said. “Come to think of it, the bear might have been around last night. I heard one of the horses act up, but didn’t go for a look-see.”

“Getting lazy in your young age, are we?”

“I had something on my mind at the time.” Zach didn’t elaborate. Instead, he took Lou’s hand in his and asked, “Are you sure it’s all right? We might be gone most of the day.”

Lou beamed and kissed him on the cheek. “Go on. Have fun. I have the cake to bake and a list to compose of all the things we’ll need to get before the baby comes.”

“Uh-oh,” Shakespeare said. “It’s begun. Brace yourself, son. Once a wife starts making a list of jobs for her man to do, the poor cuss never has any time to himself.”

“Goodness, how you exaggerate,” Lou retorted. “To listen to you talk, a person would think all women were shameless gossips and cruel taskmasters.”

“ ‘You speak an infinite deal of nothing,’ ” Shakespeare quoted. “And you put words in my mouth, besides.”

Zach almost commented that she was good at that. But after last night, he decided he better not. “Take care while I’m gone. Don’t lift anything heavy.”

“Land’s sake,” Lou said. “I’m not that far along yet. Don’t treat me as if I’m fragile when I’m not.”

“Whatever you do,” Zach cautioned, “don’t step outside without a weapon.”

Lou glanced at McNair, wondering if he would tell Zach she had done just that the day before. But all Shakespeare did was smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be perfectly fine,” she said.

Flat on his belly behind a log, the Outcast watched the half-breed and the old white ride off. That they were together suited his purpose.

The Outcast had lain awake long into the night, thinking. He had a plan. The first part of that plan involved the young white woman.

He stayed where he was until the breed and the old man were lost to view to the south. Then he rose, and with his bow in hand, crept along the tree line until he was on the side of the lodge opposite the square of glass. Swiftly, he crossed the open space and pressed his back to the logs.

He edged toward the front. Peering around the corner, he saw that the young woman had left the rectangle of wood open. From within came humming. She sounded very happy. For a few moments that gave him pause, but only a few. He crept around the corner.

Inside the cabin, Louisa was mixing cake ingredients. She added half a cup of sugar. One of her weaknesses was her sweet tooth. Zach often teased her about it, but she had loved sweets since she was a little girl, and whenever they went to Bent’s Fort she made sure they brought sugar home.

Outside the cabin, the Outcast leaned his bow against the logs and drew his knife. He peeked inside. Wood covered the ground. Part of one side was made of stone. There was a square of wood with four long legs, like the old man and the Flathead had in their lodge, and those things they sat on. It was so unlike the lodges of his people. Whites were strange.

Inside the cabin, Lou went to a cupboard and took down the bowl of eggs she had gathered that morning from the chicken coop. She wished she had milk. Water would do, but milk was better. She kept suggesting to Zach that it would be nice if they had a cow, but her suggestion seemed to go in his ears and bounce back out. She was beginning to think that being subtle with a man didn’t work. The only way for a woman to get her man to listen was to walk up and whack him on the head. She giggled.

Outside the cabin, the Outcast wondered what she found so amusing. He slid one foot inside and then the other. He held the knife low, the blade out. A single thrust and he could kill her.

Lou set down the spoon. She could use a few more eggs. She started to turn, thinking she would go out to the coop and see if the chickens had laid more. Her hands drifted to her apron, to her belly, and she looked down at herself. She thought of the new life inside of her and marveled at the miracle. She was both overjoyed and scared. Scared that something might go wrong. Both Winona and Blue Water Woman had said they would be there for her, and that helped.

Shock gripped the Outcast. The glow on the young woman’s face, her gesture in placing her hands over her stomach. He had seen the one he never thought about do that many times when the spark of new life was kindled in her. The white woman is pregnant. It jolted him. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

Lou closed her eyes and gently rubbed small circles across her belly. “What should we call you?” she wondered out loud. Which was silly since they had no idea whether it was a boy or a girl. Zach kept saying it would be a boy and was already talking about the hunts they would go on and how he would teach the boy to track and fish and hone knives and how to read the stars at night.

The Outcast almost trembled. This young white woman reminded him so much of her. Part of him wanted to slay her then and there, to plunge his knife into her body again and again and again. Another part of him—the part that had cried with happiness the day she told him the good news, the part he thought he had wiped from his being—stirred deep within him.

“If you’re a girl we can call you Judith or Kathleen or maybe Karen. I’ve always liked those names. Or how about Beatrice? Would you like to be called Bea?”

The Outcast fought down his shock. He must remember she was white, and his enemy.

“If you’re a boy, we could call you Nate, after Zach’s pa, or Shakespeare, after the nicest man who ever lived. Your pa-to-be has his mind set on a name, but he won’t tell me what it is. He says it’s a secret and he’ll only say after he’s holding you in his arms.”

The white woman’s voice, so low and soft, reminded the Outcast of her voice. He edged forward.

“I don’t know why he’s keeping it a secret. But then, he’s a man, and men do the silliest things. But I wouldn’t trade mine for all the silk and jade in China.” Lou giggled, and rubbed her stomach some more. “Listen to me, talking to you as if you can hear me. I guess Zach isn’t the only silly goose in this family.”

The Outcast moved closer. He was almost within striking range.

“If you are a girl, I want you to know I’ll be the best mother I can possibly be. I may not always do everything right, but I’ll always try.”

The Outcast’s insides were twisted into a knot. He wished she would stop rubbing. The memories were almost more than he could bear.

“One last thing and I’ll stop babbling. This is a hard life, baby. We like it to be nice and often it is. But hard times come whether we like them or not. I lost my ma much too early. I lost my pa to hostiles. I pray to God I get to live longer than they did. I pray I see you grow to be a woman, and see you with a husband of your own one day. I pray I can hold my grandchildren in my lap and rock them in front of the fireplace in the evening. That would make me happier than anything I can think of.”

The words were meaningless to the Outcast. Her expression, though, said more than words ever could. He stopped and looked down at his knife, and when he looked back up, the woman was staring at him in bewilderment.

Lou couldn’t believe her eyes. Her heart pounded in her chest. She realized she had left the front door open. If Zach had warned her about that once, he had warned her a hundred times. Worse, her pistols were on the dresser in their bedroom and her rifle was propped against the wall over by the front door.

The Outcast willed his arm to move. He willed his hand to bury the knife. He did not need her alive. She would serve his purpose as well dead.

Fear washed over Lou, but she did not let on that she was afraid. Zach told her once that she must never show fear to an enemy.

The Outcast’s hand didn’t move. Nor did he. He saw that she was unafraid, and his respect for her climbed. Then he remembered why he was there. Taking two long steps, he touched the tip of his blade to her throat.

Lou swallowed, but that was all. She looked into the warrior’s dark eyes, and she forced a smile. “How do you do? My name is Louisa King. Who might you be?”

The Outcast cocked his head and studied her. This wasn’t what he expected. This wasn’t what he expected at all.

Lou was trying to tell which tribe he was from. She thought at first he might be a Ute since the Ute lived closest to King Valley, but she had seen Utes and they were different. He wasn’t a Crow or a Nez Perce or any of the other Indians she was familiar with. The tribe he most reminded her of were the Blackfeet, but his face and his buckskins were not quite as theirs were.

The Outcast was confused. Here he was, holding a knife to her neck, and all she did was stare at him. Most enemies would fight or cringe in fright.

Lou knew a little Shoshone, so she tried that. She didn’t realize she still had her hands on her belly until she saw him look down at them.

The Outcast was thinking of her again. Of how happy he had been when the baby was born. He remembered its wail when the lance pierced its body, and he broke out in a cold sweat.

Lou wondered why the warrior was just standing there. She’d thought she was a goner, but now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe he wanted her alive. She kept on smiling and said quietly, “I will be your friend if you will let me. Me and my husband both.” Those last words weren’t entirely true. Were Zach to walk in the door, he’d kill the warrior before he could blink.

The Outcast shook himself and stepped back. He had come in determined to slay her, and now he couldn’t. He didn’t understand what he was feeling. Or did he, and he was unwilling to admit it? The Outcast started to raise his free hand to his brow and caught himself. He must be strong. He must not let her stir his memories. It would be so easy to kill her. She was so small, so fragile. Then he saw her eyes and was startled. He had not noticed until now that they were blue. Blue had been her favorite color. The baby was bundled in a blue blanket on that terrible day, and in his mind, as vivid as if it were happening again, he saw the splash of red against the blue, and a growl of torment escaped him.

Lunging, the Outcast gripped the white woman by the throat.