cause to complain. You outthink everybody. All I do is kill.”
Geist lowered his long gun and flicked his reins. “I’m irritable, I suppose, because there’s so much at stake. We can’t have them suspect.”
“They have no more brains than cows.”
“And like cows we’ll use them to our own ends. Six months from now we’ll be back where we were before that sheriff and his posse closed in. Only better, because out here there’s no law.”
“It was the best idea we ever had, coming west of the Mississippi.”
“We?” Geist said.
“Well, you know.”
“I should have thought of it years ago. We can do whatever we please out here. Think about that. Whatever we damn well please.” Geist’s face practically glowed with fierce delight. “There’s no one to stop us.”
“What about St. Vrain and his partners, and that busybody King?”
“All St. Vrain cares about is his precious fort. The Bent brothers have ties to the Cheyenne and the Arapaho, not to mention the Crows. They won’t give a lick what we do.”
“That still leaves Nate King.”
“Yes, it does. But if we do this right, if we do it smart, we’ll have everything in place before he can lift a finger against us. By then, it will be too late.”
“I can shoot him so it never comes to that.”
“Use your damn head. If we kill him, we’ll make the Shoshones mad, and we want their trade as much as the others.”
“They’ll never know it was me,” Petrie said.
“Maybe not. But there’s that son of his to consider. I had a long talk with St. Vrain about this Zachary King. He’s our main worry. He wiped out an entire trading post for stirring up trouble with the redskins.”
“What do you mean, wiped out?”
“What the hell do you think I mean? He and some Shoshones killed every last man. Killed some Crows who were involved, too, which didn’t sit well with the Crows. Yet another reason for us to choose them and not another tribe.” Geist shook his head. “No, this Zach King is a he-bear. The genuine article. We’ll tread light so as not to involve him.”
“A lot of trouble to go to,” Petrie said. “I could kill him as well as his pa.”
Geist rode for a while in silence, then said, “If it comes to that. In the meantime, do as I say.”
“Don’t you mean as Toad says?”
“Isn’t he something?” Geist said.
The river they were following flowed through gorgeous country lush with vegetation and teeming with game. They spooked a female elk that barreled away through the undergrowth with her calf at her tail.
“That reminds me,” Petrie said. “Why didn’t you ask them about the women?”
“One step at a time,” Geist replied. “First we win their confidence, and then we set it up.”
“I can’t wait,” Petrie said.
“Me neither.”
Chapter Eight
The temperature was pushing one hundred the day that Zach King and two Shoshones came down out of the mountains to Mud Hollow. They drew rein on a hill that overlooked the new mercantile. Zach took in the horses that lined the hitch rail and the bustle of activity. “What we heard is true.”
His uncle, Touch The Clouds, grunted. “If the rest is true, you can stop worrying.”
“I have to see for myself.”
The other Shoshone said, “Your father is satisfied, but you are still suspicious.”
“I’m not my father, Drags The Rope.”
The warrior smiled. “No, Stalking Coyote, you are not Grizzly Killer.”
“The whites have a saying,” Zach said. “Better safe than sorry. It’s better if these traders prove to us we can trust them than if we take it for granted and end up like before.” He kneed his dun.
The slope was broken by a new trail, courtesy of the many who had already paid the trading post a visit. Below, Crows, Nez Perce, and several Flatheads were moving about or talking.
“I do not see any Blackfeet,” Drags The Rope said, and grinned.
“If they find out about this place, they might burn it to the ground,” Zach predicted.
“It is too far south for the Blackfeet,” Touch The Clouds said.
“Then the Sioux, maybe.”
“Why do you resent these traders so much? It could be they have good hearts.”
Zach didn’t have a ready answer. His sister liked to poke fun at him by saying he was suspicious of all whites. But that wasn’t entirely true. He trusted his father, and his father’s dearest friend and mentor, Shakespeare McNair. Besides, he was part white himself.
A wagon was parked by the corral. A grizzled white man with gray hair and a floppy hat came out of what Zach took to be a small stable and stretched. He spied them and immediately hurried into the trading post.
Their arrival sparked considerable interest. Zach knew a number of the warriors and acknowledged the few who acknowledged him. More were interested in greeting Touch The Clouds. The giant Shoshone leader was famed not only among his own kind, but also among many other tribes—including their enemies—for his bravery and devotion to the welfare of his people.
Drags The Rope remarked with another of his wry grins, “I am happy to be ignored.”
They dismounted and went into the mercantile. Zach recognized the man called Toad behind the long counter from his father’s description. On the near side of the counter stood a man with blond curls. His father had called that one Geist. A small man with ratlike eyes was at the far end, a rifle on the counter next to him. That would be Petrie, Zach decided. The man with the gray hair and floppy hat and two others were leaning against the opposite wall. All of them were armed, but that was nothing new on the frontier; Zach was heavily armed himself. He walked to the counter with his Shoshone friends on either side.
“How do you do?” Toad said. “I understand that you’re Nate King’s son, Zach.” He held out his hand.
Zach shook hands, but he didn’t like doing so. The man’s hand was clammy.
“I’m Geist,” the blond man said, and he shook, too.
Zach introduced Touch The Clouds and Drags The Rope.
“I’m right pleased to make your acquaintance,” Geist said. He offered his hand, but Touch The Clouds didn’t take it. Instead, Touch The Clouds grunted.
“He’s not insulting you,” Toad said. “Shaking hands is a white custom.” To the Shoshone chief he said, “I’m pleased to meet you as well. I hope your people will feel free to visit often.”
In Shoshone, Touch The Clouds said to Zach, “You talk for us. I do not want them to know I know a little of their tongue.”
Zach nodded at the three men against the wall. “Who are they?”
“They work for me,” Toad said.
“Their names.”
Toad seemed surprised. He pointed at the one in the floppy hat. “That’s Dryfus. Next to him is Gratt. The tall one is Berber.”
“Why do you want to know their names?” Geist asked.
“It is good to know who your enemies might be,” Zach told him.
“Enemies?” Toad said. “Didn’t your father tell you? I run an honest store. Anyone comes in here, white or red, they’re treated the same.”
“If that’s true, it would make you…” Zach pretended to grope for a word. “What is it the whites say? Oh, yes. It would make you a saint.”
Toad snorted. “I’m not any such thing. I’m a businessman. But an honest businessman.”
“Is that possible?”
“Your friend St. Vrain is one. The Bent brothers, too, from what I’m told.”
