The Outcast

“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