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“Only whites would have such empty heads,” Flute Girl said.

“What work do they expect of us?” Lavender wanted to know.

Raven On The Ground signed the query. The answer puzzled her. Dryfus signed that Geist would explain soon, and they both grinned as if it were some sort of joke. Until then, Dryfus signed, they were free to walk about as they pleased. He warned them not to stray too far from the lodge, for their own safety.

“Do they think we cannot take care of ourselves?” Flute Girl asked.

Geist and Dryfus left.

The four women looked at one another, at the wood walls, and at the wood over their heads.

“I am sorry I came,” Lavender said.

“We should not judge them too quickly,” Raven On The Ground advised. “The whites made this place for us thinking we would like it.”

“They should know better,” Spotted Fawn said. “It is like being in a cave made of wood.”

“We know how strange they are, so we should not be surprised,” Raven On The Ground said. “They have befriended our people and put their trust in us, so we should put our trust in them.”

“I cannot sleep in here,” Flute Girl declared. “When it grows dark I will go outside and sleep on the ground.”

“Me, too,” Lavender said.

Raven On The Ground was tempted to do the same. To take their mind off the shock of their dwelling, she proposed that they go to the trading post and see all the wonderful goods the whites had brought.

“That is one thing the whites know how to do,” Flute Girl said. “They know how to make the money they love so much.”

“Yes,” Raven On The Ground agreed. “They do.”

Chases Rabbits was having a bad moon. First it was the bear that tried to eat him. Now he had a worse problem. He was two days out from the mercantile and had at least three more of hard riding before he would reach King Valley. Suddenly he came to a crest dotted with firs and spotted a line of riders below. They were too far off for him to tell more than that they were warriors. He hoped they were Crows or maybe Shoshones, who were on good terms with his people. He hoped they weren’t Blackfeet or Piegans or Bloods, who would count coup on any Crow they came across.

As it turned out, they were something else. He was in the cover of the firs, watching the nine riders ascend, when the style of their hair and their faces sent a tingle of worry down his spine. They were Utes. They were far from their own land, and they were painted for war.

The Crows and the Utes weren’t at war with each other at the moment, but they weren’t friends, either. Chases Rabbits was glad they hadn’t spotted him. They would reach the crest a good arrow’s flight from where he was and go on their way none the wiser.

Then his pinto whinnied.

Immediately, several of the foremost Utes looked up, and one of them pointed at the shadows that concealed Chases Rabbits, yipping in the Ute tongue.

Chases Rabbits wheeled his pinto and fled. Should they catch him, there was no doubt what they would do: the same as Crows would do to captured Utes. He would be mutilated to test his manhood and then slain.

Whoops rose in a chorus and hooves pounded hard. The war party was after him.

Chases Rabbits fought down panic. His pinto was fast, but their horses could be faster. His capture seemed inevitable.

He flew down the other side, reining right and left to avoid trees and boulders and vaulting logs. He tried to calm himself so he could think clearly, but his heart hammered in his chest and his blood pulsed madly in his veins.

Chases Rabbits glanced over his shoulder. The Utes hadn’t appeared yet. He swept around a spruce and into a stand of alder. To his left down a short slope grew a dense thicket of chokecherries. The instant he spotted it, he reined down and in, his pinto crashing through the tangle with ease. When he had gone as far as he could throw a rock, he came upon a clear spot, drew rein, and jumped down. He could hear the Utes, but he couldn’t see them yet.

Quickly, Chases Rabbits grabbed the rope bridle and pulled while putting his foot against the pinto’s front leg and pushing. Quite a few moons ago, he had witnessed Nate King use the trick with his horse, and he had been trying to teach the pinto. Sometimes it cooperated. Sometimes it didn’t.

Right now it didn’t.

“Down!” Chases Rabbits urged, and pulled and pushed harder. The pinto balked.

Above them, the forest crashed with the sound of the onrush of warriors out for his blood.

“Down!” Chases Rabbits pleaded, and practically hung from the bridle by both hands. The pinto tucked at the knees. He pulled with all his might, and to his elation, the pinto lowered onto its side. He flung himself on top of it, his shoulders and head on its neck, and wrapped his fingers around its muzzle to keep it from whinnying.

Yipping and screeching, the Utes swept out of the trees and hurtled down the mountain. They passed so close that Chases Rabbits could have brought one down with his bow. Any moment he expected to be spotted. Then they were past and the forest swallowed them, and he released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Not until the hoofbeats faded to welcome silence did Chases Rabbits rise and pull the pinto erect. Swiftly mounting, he resumed his ride, only with more care. It wasn’t unheard of for war parties to split up when in enemy territory to be less conspicuous.

Where there were nine Utes, there might be more.

Chapter Fourteen

Raven On The Ground was confused and more than a little worried.

Chases Rabbits had told her that the whites wanted women to cook and sew and mend for them. In return, they would be allowed to have things from the trading post. She and her companions had been at the post living in the awful wood lodge for several days now and they’d hardly had to do anything. She kept asking Dryfus what they were to do. He would go to Geist, then come back and say that they should be patient and enjoy themselves, and all would be made clear soon. But there was nothing to do but talk and walk. They were tired of talking and had walked all over Mud Hollow without seeing anything worth their interest.

That evening the women held a council.

“I am for going back to our village,” Flute Girl announced.

“I as well,” Lavender said. “We waste our time here. The whites sent for us but they don’t need us.”

“They are puzzling people,” Spotted Fawn remarked.

“They are as different from the Apsaalooke as dirt is from water,” Flute Girl said.

“In the morning I will ask Dryfus one more time what it is the whites wish us to do,” Raven On The Ground said. “If they do not have work for us, we will leave.”

“Maybe you should not go to him,” Lavender said.

“He is the only one who knows sign.”

“But he will just go to the one they call Geist, and Geist will say what he always says. Relax and enjoy ourselves.”

“What else, then?” Raven On The Ground asked.

“Go to the one they call Toad,” Lavender suggested. “He is their leader, is he not?”

“Chases Rabbits did say that Toad is their chief, yes,” Raven On The Ground confirmed.

“Yet not once has he to come to talk to us,” Spotted Fawn said. “He is not a polite host.”

“He is white,” Flute Girl said.

“Maybe he will give us work if we ask him face-to-face,” Lavender said.

It was worth a try, they all decided. Raven On The Ground would speak for them, as she had been doing.

So the next morning, shortly after the trading post opened and while there were yet few people, Raven On The Ground made sure her dress was clean and her hair was perfectly done in two braids. Then she went into the post to present herself to the white chief. Two of the others—Gratt and Berber, she believed their names to be—noticed her but went on about their business.