Outcast (15 page)

Arch and Standish laughed. “Ma'am.…”

“Iona.”

Standish nodded. “Iona, Arch and I will have to take you fishing.”

“So you can learn the language,” Arch said.

“Sounds to me like fishing is built on tall tales.”

“Sounds to me like your mother is a natural,” Standish grinned, and all three laughed.

Standish was lying on the grass, propping himself up on one elbow. “Ma'am that was the best fried chicken I ever had.”

“And potato salad,” Arch said.

“I wouldn't know about the potato salad,” Standish said, “Seeing as how someone else ate all of it.”

“Didn't you get any salad, Mister.…”

“Miles, ma'am.”

“Iona.”

Standish nodded.

“He got salad, Ma. He's just being a fisherman.”

Grins were traded around the picnic basket.

“How did you ever get a name like Miles?”

“To go with Standish?”

Iona nodded.

“My father had a great love for poetry. So.…”

“Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”

Miles nodded.

“Seems that you take after your father.”

“Most of the time it was the other way around. Most of the time he caught me, too.”

Iona smiled. “So you were taught to the tune of a hickory stick.”

“Reading and writing and 'rithmatic.”

They both laughed.

“How about you, Arch? Are you a poet in the making?”

“Don't know much about it.”

“Don't they teach poetry in school anymore?”

“Don't go to school.”

“Why?”

“That's none of your…diddlydee business.” Arch had jumped to his feet, and he leaned toward Standish, his face painted with rage.

“Arch!”

“Well, it ain't.”

Iona was on her knees, gathering plates and utensils, and the remaining shreds of the picnic. A mask had slipped over her face. She tried to smile at him as she collected the plates and blanket, but the smile couldn't crack the façade.

“Thank you, Mr. Standish. We very much enjoyed this day.”

“Miles,” Standish said. “From the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”

The words washed against the backs of the two as they walked away, lost in the
swish
of their feet moving through the tall grass of the meadow.

Standish leaned back to wipe his sleeve against his forehead. He was standing beside a sandstone ledge presiding over one side of a dry coulee. The ledge cracked from eons of exposure to the wind and severe temperatures in Montana. Some of it had sloughed off into the coulee, and that was what Standish was loading into the wagon.

Hortenzia was fidgeting. The coulee was dry with only occasionally tufts of bunch grass for her to taste. Apparently, it didn't stack up to the fresh green grass in the meadow. She
chuffed
, and Standish stopped for a moment to talk to her. He stepped over to her, running his hand along her neck. “Won't be long now, girl. We're almost done. I know you need a drink of water. I do, too. Won't be long, now, girl.”

Hortenzia nodded, and Standish wondered if she had understood his words as Sally always seemed to. Standish leaned over, pulling the opposite end of the flat rock up and toward him.
Bzzzzzz
. Standish dropped the rock.
Thump
.

Hortenzia started, and the wagon rolled forward two or three steps.

“Easy girl. He isn't causing any trouble. He's just like us, eager to get out of the sun. Easy, girl. Easy.”

Standish picked up the crowbar and the shovel and the pick and put them in back of the wagon. He settled on the wagon's seat and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Hortenzia set out eagerly. The wagon clattered along the two-track road, rocks shifting on the wagon bed. Passing through the air created a breeze and cooled the day. Hortenzia's unique odor complemented by the scent of grass. Occasionally wild roses or sage poked into the milieu like punctuation marks in a sentence.

Something white winked at him from a small knoll by the trail. Standish pulled back on the reins. He walked up the knoll as he might walk up the aisle in a church. There on slender stalks was a stand of Sego Lilies. Three petals and as white as Christ's robe with a blush of royal purple at the base. Extending from that base was a three-pointed golden star. So slender were the stalks that the lilies bobbed and nodded in the slightest of breezes, a royal court discussing the latest gossip.

Standish knelt at the flowers, reveling at the beauty of God's creation, wondering when a meadowlark offered its seven-note arpeggio if that might not be the choir singing at this service. He prayed for the first time for as long as he could remember. He thanked God for the beauty of his creation. He thanked God for the sense of serenity that had entered Standish's life and prayed that he would remain vigilant, so that he might survive if Bodmer came hunting him. That thought jerked him back to the day. He slipped behind a large rock and studied the area, probing the grass and the swales for any glint of metal, any dust following a bunch of running horses.

Nothing waited for him, and it wasn't until he sighed that Standish realized he had been holding his breath. He rose and stepped to Hortenzia. She was snatching at the grass beside the trail. He suspected that horses didn't spend much time looking at flowers. He suspected that was a lesson he might adopt if he were to survive.

The track steepened. Not much farther now to the trail to his home. What a strange concept that was,
his home
. He'd best stop thinking like that. The cabin wasn't a home so much as hideout, and he might have to abandon it at any moment. That thought left an ache in his chest, and that wasn't good. Arch had told him not to get attached to the chicks, because it hurt too much to kill them. He had to think of the cabin, like that: something temporary, a rest stop in his run for life.

There, the two-track road that led to the cabin. Standish clicked Hortenzia to the road, but the reminder wasn't needed. The mare knew she was going home, and she picked up the pace to a trot. He had thought about adding Hortenzia to his entourage the next time Bodmer set him to running but that wouldn't be fair. She had a home, and it was best that she stay there.

Sally whickered from the meadow, and Hortenzia's ears flicked toward her.

“Only a minute, now, Hortenzia. We'll pull the wagon up beside the root cellar, and then I'll take you into the barn. We'll get this harness off, and then you can go out and see Sally. I'll give you your oats tonight. You are a good girl, Hortenzia.”

Standish pulled the wagon to a halt beside the gaping hole. He loosened the tugs, and walked with Hortenzia to the barn. “Your work day is done, girl. You go out and talk to Sally. I suspect she's been lonesome.”

Hortenzia trotted through the barn. She nickered, and Sally returned the summons. Apparently they had a lot to talk about.

Iona bent over the sink, wrist deep in the soapy water. She was scrubbing the remains of the picnic from the dishes. She held a plate up to the light from the window. Clean, no vestiges of potato salad or chicken. Nothing left over from the picnic. She plunged the plate into steaming clear water, leaving it to soak as she scrubbed another dish.

Arch pried the dish from the water with a wooden spoon and scrubbed it dry with a towel. “Did you have a good time today, Ma?”

“Yes, the best time I've had in a long time. I watched my son catch a beautiful fish that will feed both of us. I ate my dinner on the banks of a very pretty beaver pond in the midst of a stand of quaking aspen. I had a very good time.”

“Do you like him, Ma?”

“Who?”

“Ma,” Arch said, exasperation creeping from his words.

“He seems to be a very nice man.”

“But he keeps prying, doesn't he?”

“I don't think he meant to pry. I think he was just trying to make conversation.”

Arch shook his head as he pried the next plate from the water. “Make conversation? You figure he's too dumb to talk natural?”

Iona smiled. “No.”

Arch had stopped drying dishes. He wanted his question answered.

Iona twisted her neck, trying to free it from the ache that had settled into it, and then she returned her attention to Arch. “The thing is, people don't like to open the doors to our lives until we know who's standing on the other side.”

“So what did we learn today?”

“Well, we know that Mr. Standish.…”

“Miles, Ma. His name is Miles.”

“Yes, well we learned that Miles is well educated.”

“Well educated?” Arch shook his head. “He's dumb as a post.”

A smile teased the corners of Iona's mouth. “Well, maybe, compared to you.”

Arch nodded. That was the way he figured it. “So you reckon he was just wondering if we are axe murderers or something?”

Iona grinned. “Something like that. Now, let's finish up these dishes. We've had more excitement today than for a long time.”

Pain Edged over Arch's face, and Iona wished that she could take those words back. She wished she could block that day from her mind and Arch's, too.

CHAPTER 8

Standish stepped shivering from the outhouse. He peered at the stars. Not so bright, now. The sun was preparing to poke over the horizon. He walked toward the barn, his eyes seeking the faint path.

The barn door opened without a sound, and Sally nickered. Standish smiled. “I know I haven't been giving you the attention you deserve old girl. Maybe we can go for a ride this afternoon.”

Sally nodded. She would like to go for a ride. He gave each horse a bucket of oats and walked out, leaving the door open. He walked back to the cabin, feeling good about the morning, about the good breakfast he would have.

Standish stopped fifty feet from his cabin door and shook his head. He must be hungrier than he thought. He imagined the scent of frying bacon. He ran this tongue across his teeth to see if his sense of taste as well as scent was teased. He took two more steps and stopped. It wasn't his imagination. It was Arch. It had to be Arch. Who else would be in his cabin so early?

Standish slipped through the morning air to a window. The window was dusty. He hadn't cleaned it because he thought it might reduce the chances of a flash of light that would reflect the presence of his cabin to a stranger. Someone was sitting at his table. Thoughts dark as the night ran through Standish's head. If one of them was waiting in the cabin, the others could be hiding in the darkness.

He stepped back to the window. The intruder's head barely reached the top of the chair. Arch. It had to be Arch, but
they
might have caught Arch. Maybe
they
were using him for bait, a yellow-bellied grasshopper to catch Miles Standish. But why would Arch be eating if he were being held prisoner? Stupid question. If the cabin were on fire, Arch would still take time to finish his breakfast.

Standish shivered. Cold this morning, and it wouldn't be long before the sun cracked the horizon. Better to step into the cabin than to be caught outside in daylight. He stopped at the door, took a breath and plunged in. He stood in the middle of the floor, eyes darting about the room.

Arch looked up from the table. “If you're so diddlydee hungry, why didn't you come earlier? I fixed you breakfast but you dawdled so, and I couldn't see any reason to waste good food, so I.…”

Standish growled, “Arch, what the…he…helter…are you doing here?”

Arch's face curled into conjecture. He nodded. “Helter. That's a good word.”

Standish's teeth gritted, the sound carrying to Arch. “You got a toothache or something? Ma keeps prairie cone flower root. That'll take the hurt away. Helter of a remedy for toothache.” Arch turned back to his breakfast.

Standish's words rumbled from deep in his core. “What the…helter are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

Arch shook his head. “Ain't night. Day's a'burnin' out there,” Arch cast a speculative look at Standish. “S'pose you were going to lay in that bed 'til noon. Well we can't make it to town if you're laying slugabed.”

“Make it to town?”

“Yeah.”

Standish sighed. He had two mysteries to probe. “Any of that bacon left?”

Arch shook his head. “Told you. Made this bacon just for you, but when you dawdled wasn't anything I could do but eat it.”

Standish nodded. The slab of bacon was still out of the cooler. He could cut a couple of slices, and have breakfast. He reached for the bacon, but Arch caught his arm. “Don't see how you have time for breakfast, now, what with you dawdling the way you do.”

“I can't have breakfast?” The words hissed between Standish's teeth.

Arch shoved away from the table, reaching into his mouth with his finger to work at a bit of bacon that had lodged in his teeth. When he was finished, he said, “No reason to make Hortenzia pull those rocks to town is there?”

One of Standish's eyes closed, and he shook his head. “Can't see any reason why.”

“Well, we better get at it, then?”

“What, Arch?”

“Unloading the wagon.”

“So we can go to town?”

Arch nodded. Standish might be slow, but he was catching on.

“What if I don't want to go to town?”

Arch's tongue was moving around his mouth, exploring for misplaced bacon. Meanwhile he explored the reasons why Standish might not want to go to town. “Don't know,” he concluded.

“Don't know what?”

“Don't know why you wouldn't want to go to town.”

“Do you want to go to town, Arch?”

“Kinda.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Mr. Kennedy will let me try out some of his licorice and some of his cheese. He lets me do that so he can be sure it's good enough for his other customers.”