Chapter Eight
Zach King tried to tell himself he had no reason to worry. There had been only the one shot. If Lou and Blue Water Woman were beset by hostiles, surely there would have been more. They were tough, strong women; they wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Then Zach remembered that his wife was forever traipsing outside without her weapons and leaving the front door open. He glanced at McNair, riding hard beside him, and said loud enough to be heard over the pounding of hooves, “What do you think?”
Shakespeare thought they were making a mountain out of a prairie dog mound. There could be a perfectly ordinary explanation for the shot. Either woman might have shot a deer or some other animal for the cook pot. Or maybe a fox had got in with the chickens. Or a rattlesnake decided to sun itself close to one of their cabins. He seemed to recollect that Louisa, in particular, was skittish about snakes.
Since Zach was looking at him and waiting for a reply, Shakespeare shrugged and said, “I bet they’re fine, but it doesn’t hurt to check.” He said that last for Zach’s benefit. The boy—Shakespeare mentally caught himself—the young man had a tendency to overreact. When there really was danger, well, heaven help anyone or anything that threatened Zach King or those he cared for.
The south shore came into sight. There stood McNair’s cabin, awash in sunlight, as picturesque as a painting.
Shakespeare counted the horses in his corral. “My wife went somewhere on her dun.” That the packhorses were still there told him that no one had stolen it. No self-respecting horse thief would steal just one animal.
Zach rose in the stirrups to try and see the north shore. He spied his chimney. It was too far to be certain, but he thought wisps of smoke curled to the sky. That was a good sign. Lou was supposed to be doing some baking. “Do we stop at your place or go on to mine?”
“On to yours.”
When they reached the west end of the lake, Zach slowed to a walk to spare their sweaty mounts. “If they ask why we came back, I’ll tell them I forgot my whetstone.”
“ ‘You do advance your cunning more and more,’ ” Shakespeare quoted.
“I just don’t want Lou to think that I think she can’t take care of herself. She’d never let me hear the end of it.”
Shakespeare chuckled. “ ‘Oh, what men dare do. What men may do. What men daily do, not knowing what they do.’ ”
“Can you say that in English or Shoshone so I can understand it?”
“Lout,” Shakespeare said. “It’s not my fault you’re so light of brain.” He quoted again. “ ‘A lip of much contempt speeds from me.’ ”
Zach laughed, but his heart wasn’t in their banter. He’d noticed that the front door to their cabin was wide open. “Why don’t women ever listen?”
“That was a rhetorical question, I trust.”
“A what?”
“Women are the queens of curds and creams, and queens need not stoop to listening to their subjects.”
“I ask a serious question and that’s the answer I get?”
“Haven’t you learned by now that women have minds of their own? They listen when it suits them and don’t when it doesn’t. But to be fair, men don’t listen at all.”
“What are you talking about? I listen to Lou all the time.”
“You only pretend you do. When she talks about cooking and sewing and all the things she does, you think about hunting and fishing and the black powder you need to buy the next time you’re at Bent’s Fort. When she goes on about how you need to repair the roof, you think about going for a ride up in the mountains.” Shakespeare chuckled. “We nod our heads and say ‘Yes, dear,’ and they let us cuddle with them at night. Not a bad trade, if I say so myself.”
“I don’t do any of that.”
“You don’t? Then someone else is the father of Lou’s child? My word. Who can it be?”
A retort leaped to the tip of Zach’s tongue, but then he noticed something else. “I don’t see your dun anywhere.”
“You don’t?” Shakespeare had assumed his wife was paying Lou a visit. “We’ll ask Lou if she’s seen her.”
The quiet, the smoke rising from the chimney, had eased much of Zach’s concern. He was annoyed more than anything, rankled that Lou had left the front door open yet again. Fifty yards out, he suddenly drew rein. “I’m going to teach my wife a lesson. Stay with the horses.”
“Are you sure that’s wise? Why stir the hornets when they’re being peaceable?”
“There’s only one hornet, and its high time she learned that leaving that door open could get her in trouble someday.” Zach handed the reins over and turned to jog to the cabin.
“Be gentle, son,” Shakespeare cautioned.
Making no more sound than the wind, Zach gave the chicken coop a wide berth so he wouldn’t set the hens to clucking. He came to the front wall and crouched. Grinning, he cat-stepped to the open door. It would serve Lou right, his scaring her silly. Taking a deep breath, he bounded inside while simultaneously giving voice to a roar worthy of a grizzly.
No one was there.
Scratching his head, Zach backed out. He beckoned to McNair, then scoured the shore and the forest.
Shakespeare didn’t need to ask what had happened. He was off the mare before it came to a stop. “Maybe we should fire a few shots in the air. It’ll bring them on the run.”
“Good idea.” Zach went to raise his rifle, then froze. “God in heaven,” he breathed.
Shakespeare turned, and thought his heart would burst in his chest.
From out of the woods, her face smeared with blood, staggered Blue Water Woman.
Louisa King had felt overwhelming fear before. There was the time Zach was nearly killed by a grizzly; the time the army took him into custody and he was put on trial for murder; the time a wolverine tried to kill them. Other instances came to mind. She should have been used to it, but she wasn’t. The fear that gripped her as she was being carried off by the warrior who had invaded their valley chilled her to the marrow.
Lou knew that Zach and Shakespeare would be gone for most of the day. She couldn’t count on rescue from them. She had seen Blue Water Woman brutally struck with a rock, had seen her friend collapse and blood stream over her brow and face, and felt certain she was dead. With Nate and Winona gone, and the Nansusequa off after buffalo, there was no one to come to her rescue.
Her only hope was that Zach could track her captor down. But if Zach and Shakespeare didn’t get back until dark, they’d have to wait until morning to come after her, unless they used torches. By then she would be miles away.
Presently the warrior came to a stream fed by a glacier.
Lou held her breath. Would he cross it or use it to hide his tracks?
The Outcast drew rein in the middle of the stream and shifted to look behind him. He grunted in satisfaction. There was no sign of pursuit yet. He rode up the stream toward the mountains, counting on the swift-flowing water to wash away most of the pinto’s prints. Most, but not all.
Lou’s heart sank. This was exactly what she dreaded. Now Zach and Shakespeare would have a harder time finding her. She closed her eyes and smothered a slight tremble. Ordinarily she was as brave as the next woman, but she was in dire straits. She figured the warrior was taking her to his village, where she would spend the rest of her days as his blanket warmer.
