The Outcast

Chapter Four

They came out of the heart of the darkness. There were seven of them—short, stocky warriors as different from other mountain and plains tribes as the night from the day.

Their buckskins were crude and lacked whangs. The sleeves flared from the elbows to the wrists, and on the right hip of each legging were three concentric circles painted in black. They carried ash bows and had quivers filled with arrows fletched with raven feathers. The hilts of their knives were carved from antlers, and the blades were iron.

Most remarkable of all were their faces: low foreheads, thick eyebrows, eyes like black pitch, jutting jaws, and scars. Scars in intricate patterns that covered every inch of skin on their face, deep scars that formed symbols. What they stood for, only the short men could say.

The men moved at night and laid up during the day. Less chance of being seen that way.

They were a secretive people. Bitter experience taught them the need for it. Once they lived far to the south along a great bay. Life had been good. They hunted and fished and ate the hearts of their enemies, as their forefathers had done for more winters than there were blades of grass.

Then a new tribe came. A large tribe in the thousands, compared to their paltry hundreds. The warriors rode on fleet, giant dogs, which the Tunkua later learned were called horses, and did not like having their hearts eaten. They made fierce war on the Tunkua, or Heart Eaters, as they called themselves, and it became apparent that unless the Heart Eaters fled, they would be wiped out.

Councils were held. They could not go south. There was nothing but water. They had canoes, but only a few, and they always stayed close to shore. They were not a seafaring people.

They could not go east. That way lay vast swamps and bayous infested with alligators and snakes.

The west did not appeal to them. The land was dry and hot, much of it desert, and claimed by a tribe they held in great dread, the Shis-Inday.

The only way, then, was for the Heart Eaters to go north. They packed their possessions on travois drawn by dogs, and in the dead of night left the land they loved, bound for the unknown. They crossed a near-endless prairie of waving grass. The plain did not suit them, so they turned to the northwest, and after countless sleeps came to towering mountains capped by snow.

The Heart Eaters marveled. They had never seen mountains so high. They explored and were amazed to discover that while a few tribes had laid claim to territory here and there, much of the mountains belonged to no one. They penetrated deep into the interior, deeper than anyone had ever gone, so deep that the valley they chose had never been trod by human feet. It became their new home. Here they would be safe.

Or so they thought.

Now, hiking briskly up a boulder-strewn slope, the lead warrior paused and looked back the way they had come. He could not see their valley or their village, but he looked anyway.

“You keep doing that,” remarked Splashes Blood, the warrior behind him. “What is it you look for, Skin Shredder?’

Skin Shredder was thinking of one of his wives and their new child, but he did not say that. “By the rising of the sun we will reach the pass.”

Splashes Blood grunted. “They say we cannot get through. They say the Bear People blocked the pass with rocks and dirt.”

“There will be another way.”

“I hope so. We both lost brothers. I lost Ghost Walker and you lost Stands on Moon.”

“The Bear People must be punished,” Skin Shredder declared. “Our brothers will look down from Mic-lan and be pleased with us for avenging them.” In their tongue, Mic-lan was Sky Land, where warriors went after they died. A place of beauty and plenty, with enough hearts to eat for all. “They will honor us with a feast when we join them.”

Splashes Blood had more on his mind. “It is said the Bear People have horses. It is said their women are almost as big as they are. It is said they have strange sticks that make a noise like thunder and can kill from far away. It is said they are—”

“Who says all this?” Skin Shredder cut him off.

“Spirit Walker spied on them before the pass was blocked. He saw many wonders.”

“Are you a child, to be impressed by dogs and size? We are Tunkua. We are the Heart Eaters. We will capture these Bear People and take them back to our village so that all may take part in eating their hearts. Their medicine will be ours.” That was the part Skin Shredder looked forward to the most, the eating and the power that would come from it.

“I would like to have one of their women.”

“Have as in eat or have as in the other?”

“The other.” Splashes Blood quickly added, “Before you say anything, yes, I know Tunkua are only to share their blankets with other Tunkua. But I have long wondered what it would be like to have a Bear Woman.”

“The Bear People are huge and ugly and smell. Were you to lie with one of their females, she would crush you between her legs.”

“I had not thought of that,” Splashes Blood admitted. “They do have big legs. My women have strong legs and theirs are not half as big.”

Skin Shredder scanned the ridge above for the silhouette of a cliff. This talk of mating with a Bear Woman bothered him. It would be the same as mating with an animal. He reminded himself that his friend had always been woman hungry. Of all the Tunkua, only Splashes Blood had four wives. Skin Shredder had three, and there were times of the month when that was two too many.

“It is good to hunt hearts again,” Splashes Blood said.

On this Skin Shredder agreed. In the old days there had been many hearts to eat. But now they lived so deep in the mountains, with so few tribes anywhere near, the eating of hearts was rare. Human hearts, anyway. Just thinking of eating one again made his mouth water.

“Don’t do that.”

“I can’t help it,” Louisa said and sniffled. “It is what people do when they are upset.”

“Not all people.” Zach could count the number of times he had cried on one hand and have fingers left over. His father and mother hardly ever cried, either. He could remember his father crying only twice: once when his mother lay at the verge of death, and again when his sister was kidnapped by a white woman in revenge for his pa’s shooting her brother.

Lou sniffled again. Here she had tried so hard to make this meal special so that when she broke the good news he would be happy, and instead he was acting as if he didn’t really want a baby.

“I will leave if you don’t stop.”

“Please,” Lou said softly.

“Please what?”

“Don’t be this way. It means so much to me and I want it to mean as much to you.”

“It does.”

“Then why aren’t you smiling and jumping up and down and acting all giddy as most men would?”

“When have I ever acted giddy over anything?”

Lou raised her head and looked at him, tears trickling down her cheeks. “We’re talking about our first baby.”

“And I’m saying you can’t judge me by what other men do. Just as I would never expect you to act like other women. We are each of us different. We do as we are, not as others are.”

“You’re changing the subject. Why aren’t you happy over the baby?”

“Oh, hell.” Zach got up and went to the door. As he worked the latch, he said, “I need some air.”

“Don’t go.”

Zach had to. He was mad. He was afraid he might say something he would regret and upset her more, and he would spare her that. So he went out and walked down to the lake. He hardly noticed the night sky or the wind or the water lapping the shore. He began to pace. His head was in a whirl, as the Shoshone would say. He wished his parents were home. Often when he was troubled, a talk with them soothed him.

He loved Lou dearly, but women could be a trial. She expected him to act like a simpleton when they faced the most serious event of their life. She didn’t look past the baby part to what came next. But he did, and it worried him. He considered what he should say to make her understand, then realized he was muttering to himself.

The door opened.

Louisa’s heart had torn in half when he walked out on her. She started to cry in earnest but stopped herself. She mustn’t break down. She must find out what was bothering him. It did no good to weep over something she didn’t understand.

Dabbing at her nose with her sleeve, Lou walked to the lake. She quietly stared at him, and he stared at her, and neither of them said anything until he gruffly demanded, “Well?”

“I thought we should talk some more.”

“It would help if you would listen. Your tongue works better than your ears.”

At that, Lou flinched. He rarely cast barbs at her. “All right. I’m listening with all that I am. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Zach struggled for the right way to express his feelings. “We’re going to have a child.”

“And you don’t want one. I get that now.”

“Damn it.”

Lou flinched again. He hardly ever cursed. Some men did all the time, but not him or his pa. “What?”

“That is the one thing you do that drives me madder than anything.”

“What?” Lou repeated, confused.

“You put words in my head. I hate that. You jump to conclusions and you put words in my head that were never there. I never said I didn’t want a baby. I never even thought it.”

Lou composed herself. He had a point. She had jumped to this conclusion, and that must be what was troubling him. “I’ll try not to do that. But can you tell me what is the matter so I can understand? That’s all I really want, is to understand.”

“We are going to have a child and I don’t know if I’m ready.”

Lou was still confused. “Ready how?”

Zach hesitated. It was so hard to admit it. He had to clear his throat to say, “I don’t know if I’ll make as good a father as you will a mother.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’ll make a fine father. Why would—”

“I thought you just said you would try harder?” Zach interrupted.

Lou dabbed at her nose again. “Yes, I did. I’m sorry. Go on. Why don’t you think you’ll be any good at it?”

“Because I’m me.”

“I’m sorry, but that makes no sense. Of course you’re you. Who else would you be?”

Zach gazed out over the lake. “Until I met you, I was what some would call reckless. I have a temper, and time and again it got me into trouble. Time and again I spilled blood. The irony, as my pa would call it, didn’t escape me.”

“The irony?”

“I always hated being called a breed. People look down their noses at breeds. They think breeds are violent and vicious, and I despised them for that. But then one day it hit me. I had become the very thing I despised them for thinking I was. If that isn’t ironic, I don’t know what is.”

“What does that have to do with our baby?”

“It got so bad, I have a reputation for being a killer. I was arrested by the army and put on trial, remember? It’s a wonder I’m standing here now, talking to you. I might have been hanged.”

“I was there. I know all about your past. You’ve kept no secrets from me,” Lou said. “But that was then. This is now. You’ve changed, Zach. You’re not the same person you once were.”

“People never change. They act in new ways, but the old part of them is still buried deep inside.” Zach sighed. “I act mature now, yes, but I still have a temper. I just control it better.”

“Then you have changed, and for the better.”

“Will you please listen?” Zach was growing exasperated. He took several deep breaths to calm himself, then went on. “People never change. They just act in different ways. So when we have our baby, I’ll be as fine a father as I can be. But will that be enough?”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Lou was struggling to grasp what he was getting at, and worried she was upsetting him even more.

“Because I’ll still be me. I’ll still be the man who doesn’t abide insults. I’ll still be the man who wants to smash the face of anyone who looks down their nose at him. I’ll still be the same Zach King who got into trouble all those times and was nearly hanged.”

Comprehension dawned, and Lou almost laughed. “Oh, you glorious fool, you.”

“Excuse me? Did you just call me a fool?”

“You were arrested for killing a man who was selling guns to the Indians and trying to stir up a war, and you were acquitted. So let’s not hear any more about that. As for your temper, you hardly ever lose it anymore, so you can change, no matter what you think. No, what’s bothering you is that our child will be a half-breed, and you don’t want it to go through the hell you did.”

“There’s that, too.”

“But don’t you see? No child of ours will suffer as you did because we won’t let it. I know you. You’ll protect our son or daughter as fiercely as a mother bear protects her cubs.”

Zach managed a wry grin. “So now I’m a fool and a female?”

“But you do want this baby, don’t you?”

“More than anything in the world.”

Louisa flooded with emotion. “I love you, Zach King.”

“And I love you, broken ears.”

She flew into his arms, and for a long while they just stood there, saying nothing because there was no need.