Seed of Evil (7 page)

“Now I savvy. You were shot.”

There was more scar tissue under the wolf’s belly. An inch or so higher, and the wolf’s guts would have come spilling out.

“You were lucky.”

The wolf whined and licked him.

Zach gazed into its eyes and felt his throat tighten and his eyes begin to mist. “It is you, Blaze.” He hugged the wolf close, and it didn’t resist. “Why don’t you stick around awhile this time?”

They were so near the cabin that Zach dragged the doe out, threw it over the dun, and walked back leading the horse by the reins with Blaze at his side. He kept glancing at him. He couldn’t believe Blaze was really there.

“You’ve missed a lot, old fella. My pa and ma have a cabin across the lake, and my nuisance of a sister is a lot older and has a beau, if you can believe it.”

The wolf padded along quietly. “Shakespeare McNair is still around. He’s as old as you, only in people years, but he’s held up better. I bet he’ll remember you. The two of you always got along pretty well.”

The wolf’s shoulder brushed Zach’s leg.

“Do you remember when I found you? In the snow and the cold? You were all alone in the world. We were friends for a good long while, until you ran off to find a mate.” Zach stopped and looked down and the wolf stopped and looked up. “I never did understand why you had to go. Pa explained, but I was young.” He smiled. “I understand now, though. I have a mate of my own.”

Lou was waiting by the corner of the cabin, her arms folded across her bosom. “You didn’t have to go far,” she said as they emerged from the greenery. “I heard the shot.”

Zach motioned at the doe. “All the fresh meat your little heart can desire.”

“That animal is still with you, I see.”

“He’s my friend and you should make friends with him, too. He might be here awhile.”

“Men,” Lou said.

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.

Raven On The Ground was confused and more than a little worried.

Chases Rabbits had told her that the whites wanted women to cook and sew and mend for them. In return, they would be allowed to have things from the trading post. She and her companions had been at the post living in the awful wood lodge for several days now and they’d hardly had to do anything. She kept asking Dryfus what they were to do. He would go to Geist, then come back and say that they should be patient and enjoy themselves, and all would be made clear soon. But there was nothing to do but talk and walk. They were tired of talking and had walked all over Mud Hollow without seeing anything worth their interest.

That evening the women held a council.

“I am for going back to our village,” Flute Girl announced.

“I as well,” Lavender said. “We waste our time here. The whites sent for us but they don’t need us.”

“They are puzzling people,” Spotted Fawn remarked.

“They are as different from the Apsaalooke as dirt is from water,” Flute Girl said.

“In the morning I will ask Dryfus one more time what it is the whites wish us to do,” Raven On The Ground said. “If they do not have work for us, we will leave.”

“Maybe you should not go to him,” Lavender said.

“He is the only one who knows sign.”

“But he will just go to the one they call Geist, and Geist will say what he always says. Relax and enjoy ourselves.”

“What else, then?” Raven On The Ground asked.

“Go to the one they call Toad,” Lavender suggested. “He is their leader, is he not?”

“Chases Rabbits did say that Toad is their chief, yes,” Raven On The Ground confirmed.

“Yet not once has he to come to talk to us,” Spotted Fawn said. “He is not a polite host.”

“He is white,” Flute Girl said.

“Maybe he will give us work if we ask him face-to-face,” Lavender said.

It was worth a try, they all decided. Raven On The Ground would speak for them, as she had been doing.

So the next morning, shortly after the trading post opened and while there were yet few people, Raven On The Ground made sure her dress was clean and her hair was perfectly done in two braids. Then she went into the post to present herself to the white chief. Two of the others—Gratt and Berber, she believed their names to be—noticed her but went on about their business.

Raven On The Ground looked for Geist and Dryfus but didn’t see them, which was good, as she had grown concerned about them. It was their eyes. Something she saw in them, something she could not quite define, bothered her. She did not see it all the time. Usually when they thought she wasn’t looking at them, she’d catch an unguarded expression, the kind of expression that hinted at a hunger which had nothing to do with food.

Toad was behind the counter, as he nearly always was. She rarely saw him come out from behind it. The first day she had gone up to it to thank him for inviting them, and he had moved to the other end without saying a word to her. She had thought it terribly rude. But then she had reminded herself that he was a chief and she had not approached him through one of the whites under him, as she should.

This time she would do it directly. She marched up to the counter and calmly stood with her hands folded, waiting.

Toad had a fabulous stick in his hand that left black squiggly lines on flat white squares of paper bound together somehow. He glanced up and blinked as if he were surprised. “Good morning.”

Raven On The Ground had heard those words before, from Grizzly Killer. She did not know what they meant, but she repeated them and went on smiling.

Toad put down the fabulous stick. “I didn’t know any of you spoke English.”

His sounds were alien to Raven On The Ground except for the last sound, “English.” She knew that it referred to the white tongue. She repeated it. “English.”

“My God.” Toad looked apprehensively around. He motioned, beckoning for her to follow, and moved around the end of the counter and into a narrow space with doors on both sides. He looked around again, opened one of the doors, and gestured for her to go in ahead of him.

Raven On The Ground hesitated. She did not know what kind of man he was; she did not know if being alone with him was safe. But then, he was the white chief, and he had invited them, so she smiled
and went through into a small room lined with shelves and stacked with trade goods.

Toad entered and quickly lit a lantern on a peg, then quietly closed the door. “We don’t have much time, so I will make this short.”

Again his tongue was alien. Raven On The Ground said in hers, “I do not understand.”

Toad suddenly seized her forearm. She tried to pull back, but he held her fast and stared into her eyes with an intensity that was frightening. “Please listen and heed me. You are not safe here, do you understand? You must take your friends and go. Slip away tonight after Geist and his gang have gone to sleep.”

The only sound that Raven On The Ground grasped was “Geist.” She said the name to show as much.

“He is evil. I didn’t realize it when I hired him. Not until he turned on me and took over and told me who he really is. He’s wanted for murder and some other things, and it’s those other things that you have to worry about.”

Raven On The Ground didn’t understand a single thing the white chief said. She responded as she had been doing. “Geist.”

“Yes, Geist. His real name is Ranton. But that’s unimportant. What matters are his plans for you and the other women. You must…” Toad stopped.

Raven On The Ground heard them, too: voices outside the door.

Toad’s face was a mask of fright. Suddenly he took a step forward and enfolded her in his arms, pressing his thick lips to her cheek.

Raven On The Ground was so startled that she
hadn’t yet collected her wits to resist when the door opened, revealing Geist, Petrie, and Dryfus.

“What the hell do we have here?”

Chases Rabbits needed a new charm. He had one, but it had apparently lost its power. First there had been the bear, then the Ute war party, and now a new calamity.

Nearly all Crows, men and women, had charms. Objects of power or influence or protection, often purchased at great price. Once a famous warrior, when he was young, gave five horses for a piece of wood said to come from far away. The wood was as hard as the white man’s metal, and was purported to imbue in its owner invincibility in battle. The young man went on to count many coup and distinguish himself on the field of conflict. Another time, a man obtained a special seed that was said would keep its owner free of sickness and pain, and his whole life he was never ill or wounded. Other men had charms for other purposes. Women were fond of charms that would cause men to fall in love with them.

Chases Rabbits had an uncle to thank for his. Around his neck in a small pouch was a lump of yellow rock that gleamed brightly in the sun and was supposed to impart good luck. He had paid two horses for it several winters ago, and so far it had served him well. But now his luck had changed, and it had to be that his special charm had lost its power. Charms did that sometimes.

At the moment, he sat astride his pinto with the pouch in one hand and his rifle in the other, staring in dismay at the creature perched on a high boulder
directly in his path. He had drawn rein in alarm when he saw it. “Go away!” he shouted. “Go away or I will shoot you!” It was doubly frustrating because he was close to King Valley. Another sleep, he figured, and he would be there.

The wolf stared back.

Chases Rabbits did not want to shoot if he could help it. He was not a good shot. He needed a lot more practice. And if he wounded the wolf, it was bound to attack. “Didn’t you hear me? I said to go away!”

“Bellow a little louder, why don’t you? They’ll hear you in Apache country.”

Around the boulder rode Zach King. He grinned and stopped below the wolf and nodded up at it. “Meet an old friend of mine.”

Dumfounded, Chases Rabbits saw the wolf descend and stand at the dun’s side. He switched to English. “You be brother to a wolf? How you do that?”

“I had him when he was a pup,” Zach said. “Raised him for years until he went off one day.” He nodded at it. “Blaze, this is Chases Rabbits, a friend of my sister.”

Chases Rabbits’s feelings were hurt. “Me not your friend, too?”

“Friends enough.” Zach brought his dun over to the pinto. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit? Have you come to see my knot-head sis?”

“What be knot-head?”

“Someone whose brain is all in a knot as hers always is.”

Chases Rabbits was confused. Zach seemed to be saying that Evelyn’s brain didn’t work right. “Me not savvy. Her brain be fine when me visit before.”

“You didn’t have to live with her. You didn’t have to put up with all her teasing. Or her knack for getting
herself into trouble. She was kidnapped once, for crying out loud.”

“She sleep a lot as kid?”

“What?” Zach snorted and then laughed. “Oh, I get it. No, she was taken once. But let’s forget about her and talk about you. This is the trail into our valley, so I reckon you’re on your way to pay us a visit, and if not to her, then who?”

“Me need speak your father,” Chases Rabbits said, annoyed that he got the white tongue wrong but doing his best.

“I don’t know if he’s back yet.”

“Sorry?”

“Pa and Shakespeare McNair went off hunting this morning. I don’t know if they’ll be back tonight or tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Chases Rabbits was crestfallen. He had ridden so far, endured so much.

“What’s wrong?” Zack asked.

“Ugly man at trading post want me bring him quick.”

“Toad?”

“That the one, yes.” Chases Rabbits related what Toad had said to him. He also told about his encounter with the bear.

“Sounds like you had a close shave.”

Chases Rabbits vaguely remembered what that meant, and rubbed his smooth chin. “Me not need shave. Crows not have hair on face like whites.” Except for one warrior named Hairy Face.

Zach chuckled, then sobered. “Why do you suppose Toad needs to see my pa so bad?”

“Him have problem with foxes.”

“What?”

“That what him say. Him have foxes in chicken
coop. Which strange because he not have chicken coop like you and your father do.”

“It could be he wasn’t talking about real foxes and chickens.”

“Then why him say that?”

“Maybe it was his way of saying there’s trouble brewing.” Zach grew thoughtful. “You say that you took women there to work for them?”

“Me do, yes. Why?”

“Because chickens is another word for hens and hens is another word for women.”

The white tongue was so bewildering, Chases Rabbits despaired of ever learning it well. But he didn’t miss the most important part. “Trouble for women? What kind of trouble?”

“How about I go back with you in Pa’s stead and we find out?”

“Toad want Grizzly Killer, but maybe him make do with you.” Chases Rabbits pursed his lips. “You not be like last time and kill everybody?”

“That depends,” Zach King said.