gave many names to things that made no sense.
The mercantile was busy, as usual. Chases Rabbits squared his shoulders. He smiled at Crows he knew and nodded at several Nez Perce he had met as he drew rein at the hitch rail. He tied the sorrel off as the whites liked to do, cradled his rifle, and strode in.
Geist, over at a table with Petrie and Dryfus, spotted him right away and waved.
Chases Rabbits went over. “It be good to see you again, my friend.”
Petrie looked him up and down. “Ain’t you the dandy? Where’d you get white buckskins?”
“Mother make,” Chases Rabbits said. “From white buck father kill.”
“An albino? You don’t say.” Petrie fingered Chases Rabbits’s sleeve. “I’d like to get me a set just like yours one day.”
“Me handsome, yes?”
“Oh, very,” Geist said. He bobbed his chin at the other two. “Leave us alone, boys. Our partner and me have something to talk about.”
Chases Rabbits sank carefully into a vacated chair. He had never understood why whites insisted on sitting in these uncomfortable things when there was always the perfectly flat ground or a floor to sit on. “I be partner?” He was trying to remember what the word meant.
“You bet,” Geist said. “We couldn’t do any of this without you.”
Chases Rabbits was flattered. He was important to his people
“What would you like to drink?”
“Water.”
“Oh. That’s right. You don’t drink liquor. Too bad. You don’t know what you’re missing.” Geist chuckled. “What’s that saying you’re so fond of?”
“Not just me. My people.” Chases Rabbits recited, “The Crow who drinks white whiskey is no longer Crow.”
“Haven’t your people ever heard of moderation?”
“What that?”
“You only drink enough to wet your whistle, not enough to drown.” Geist raised an arm and extended two fingers.
Toad promptly came around the counter with a bottle and two glasses and set them down without comment. Toad stared at Chases Rabbits, then went back.
“Him strange man.”
“All his people are.”
“His people? Him white like you.”
“All whites aren’t the same,” Geist said. “I come from good European stock. He’s a dreg.”
“What that?” Chases Rabbits asked.
“Forget him.” Geist opened the bottle and filled both glasses halfway. “We need to talk, you and me, about how we can help each other even more.” He pushed one of the glasses across the table.
“No, thank you,” Chases Rabbits said politely.
“Come on. Just a sip. It’s considered rude to refuse a drink from a friend.” Geist raised his glass. “Let’s toast our friendship.”
Chases Rabbits reluctantly picked up the glass. He didn’t want to insult anyone. Geist touched glasses and drained his in a gulp. Chases Rabbits took a sip and grimaced at how terrible it tasted.
“That’s a start,” Geist said. “Now then, let’s talk about your women.”
Not that many winters ago, Chases Rabbits had thought that Evelyn King was the most beautiful girl alive. Now he knew better. Raven On The Ground was all the beauty in the world in one body. When he looked at her, his mind stopped working and his whole body went numb.
Now, standing in the shade of an oak, Chases Rabbit watched the woman of his dreams wash clothes in the stream. She was on her knees at the water’s edge, dipping a doeskin dress in a pool. Her lustrous hair, her curves, her face, her lively eyes—she was perfection.
Chases Rabbits stepped out from under the tree and coughed to get her attention. She looked up and smiled, and his brain refused to work.
“Chases Rabbits! You are back from the new trading post.”
“Yes,” Chases Rabbits forced his mouth to say. None of his people called it a mercantile as the whites did. He walked over, his new rifle in the crook of his elbow.
“What is that around your waist?”
Chases Rabbits looked down at himself as if he didn’t know what she meant. “This?” He touched his new leather belt, which he wore over his buckskins as Grizzly Killer did. “The whites gave it to me.”
Raven On The Ground stood and ran her hand from the buckle to his hip. “It is very smooth.”
A sudden constriction in Chases Rabbits’s throat prevented him from replying.
“I am proud of you. Everyone is talking about how you have helped our people.”
“It is nothing,” Chases Rabbits said, his voice strangely strained.
“You are too modest.” Raven On The Ground touched his cheek. “And so handsome.”
A hot feeling spread from Chases Rabbits’s neck to his hair.
“Will you come visit me tonight?”
Chases Rabbits grew hotter. “Does this mean I can court you?”
“Silly man. What else have you been doing all this time?”
Her laughter was the music of a flute and the beauty of a rainbow all in one.
At that moment Chases Rabbits would have done anything for her—scaled the highest cliff, caught a wild horse, slain the grizzly he had encountered. Well, maybe not the grizzly, he reflected.
“So tell me what happened with the whites,” Raven On The Ground urged. She drew him to a log and perched with his hand in hers.
“They want me to make a request before the council,” Chases Rabbits related. “I will do so tonight.”
“What do they want of us?”
Chases Rabbits explained how the whites were interested in hiring women to do work at the mercantile. “They will give blankets and beads and whatever else the women might like.”
Raven On The Ground’s lovely eyes lit up. “That is something I would be interested in.”
“I know. That is why I came straight to you before I told anyone else.”
“Maybe I could get a hand mirror like Yellow Butterfly has. I have always wanted one.” She bubbled with excitement. “Oh, this is grand. What kind of work would I have to do?”
“The whites want women to cook and clean and do other things.”
“What other things?”
“The man called Geist didn’t say.”
Raven On The Ground stood. “Come. I will ask my mother and father right away. And when you bring it before the council tonight, I will be the first to step forward and say I am interested.” She tenderly placed her palm on his face. “You have done me a great favor. I am grateful.”
“I would do anything for you,” Chases Rabbits said.
Chapter Ten
Well after night had settled in, and long after the last of the Indians had left, Geist and Petrie walked from the mercantile to the new building that from the outside resembled a stable. It didn’t have double doors, as a barn or stable would, but only a single door that Geist opened and strode through.
Dryfus, Gratt, and Berber were already there. Dryfus pushed his floppy hat back on his head and said, “What do you think?”
Instead of stalls for horses, there were four rooms just big enough for a bed and a stand for a lamp. They had
