The Outcast by David Thompson Page B

lazy and they’ll be lazy later in life. Mostly he’s let you grow true to your nature, and been there to snip and prune when need be.”
    â€œYou keep comparing me to a plant.”
    â€œBecause you are. We all are, and when we’re young we need the right nurturing. Your pa took care of you just right, and you’ll do the same with your own offspring.”
    Zach drew rein and stared at him.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe things that come out of your mouth never cease to amaze me. If it’s not all that silly Bard stuff, it’s plants.”
    â€œHave a care. Old William S. was never silly. He played with words the way you used to play with those blocks your pa got you. He was—” Shakespeare abruptly stopped.
    Zach had held up a hand for silence. Turning, he gazed to the north. “Did you hear that?”
    â€œNo. What?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Zach admitted. “A scream, maybe.”
    â€œA scream?” Shakespeare twisted around, his saddle creaking under him, and listened. All he heard was the rustle of the wind and the swish of the mare’s tail. “Maybe you imagined it.”
    â€œNo. I’m pretty sure.”
    They waited, but the sound wasn’t repeated. Zach scowled and reined his bay around. “I think we should go back.”
    â€œIf they were in trouble, they’d fire shots.”
    â€œI still think we should.”
    â€œWe’d end up wasting most of the morning,” Shakespeare replied. “Besides, we haven’t seen any sign of hostiles or other whites since those goldcrazy coyotes paid us a visit a while back.”
    â€œI know.” But Zach wanted to go back anyway. He had an uneasy feeling he didn’t like.
    â€œListen. You just found out your wife is going to have a baby, so naturally you’re a little nervous about leaving her alone. We’ll look ridiculous, riding all the way back without a reason.”
    The next instant they had one. From the vicinity of the lake and the women they loved came the crack of a shot.
    Blue Water Woman was happy to have some time to herself. She loved McNair dearly, but she needed quiet spells now and then, and with him around it was never quiet. If he wasn’t quoting his precious Bard, he was griping about aches in his bones and joints or prattling on about anything and everything under the sun. She’d never met a man, red or white, who talked as much as he did.
    Today, after she fed him a breakfast of eggs and potatoes and he rode off, Blue Water Woman took up her knitting and sat in the rocking chair. She loved to knit. Winona had given her the metal needles and taught her the white way, which Winona had learned from Nate. It had surprised Blue Water Woman, a man knowing such a thing. Apparently Nate had learned it from his mother when he was a boy, much to his father’s annoyance.
    Rocking slowly, Blue Water Woman lost herself in the click of the needles and the intricate weave. She was making Shakespeare what the whites called a sweater. The name puzzled her. Sweaters were usually worn in cold weather, when people sweated least. She thought it made more sense for whites to call it a warmer, but then, the whites did and said many things that to this day perplexed her.
    Blue Water Woman sometimes marveled that she had wed a white man. The Flatheads didn’t hate the whites, as the Blackfeet and some other tribes did, but few took white mates.
    She remembered when they first met. Back then he’d had brown hair and he didn’t quote the Bard every time he opened his mouth. Truth was, he’d been shy and quiet—as incredible as that was to believe—but he’d had the same wonderful personality. The one thing he did then that he still did now was love to laugh, and that laugh of his was infectious. When Shakespeare laughed, the whole world laughed with him.
    He was handsome, too. Age had changed his features, as it did