The Outcast Read Online Free Page A

swallowed a bird and is so swollen, it can’t hardly move.”
    Lou didn’t think much of his comparison, but she smiled and said, “Just so you’re happy.”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œI want you to always be happy. I want us to always be happy. I want our children to be happy, too.”
    About to fork another piece into his mouth, Zach looked at her. He remembered how lately she had been sick in the morning. Suddenly the feast fit for a king took on a whole new meaning. “You’re with child.”
    Lou smothered a frown. She’d wanted to break the news, not have it broken to her. “You don’t have to say it quite like that. But yes, I am.” She waited, and when all he did was bite the piece of pie off the fork, she goaded him with, “Well?”
    â€œWell, what? You must take care of yourself. Don’t lift heavy things. Don’t eat a lot of sugar. Stuff like that.”
    Lou waited again, then said, “That’s all you have to say?”
    â€œWhat else? I’ll need to make a cradle. Or maybe my pa will let us have the one they used for me and my sister. We’ll tell them as soon as they get back. My ma can give you advice on all kinds of female stuff.”
    â€œThat’s all you can think of?”
    Zach was uneasy. Her tone warned him that she was on the brink of anger, and he had no idea what he had done. “I’m right pleased. We’ve talked about having a baby and now we will.”
    â€œAll you are is pleased? You’re not giddy with excitement? You’re not wonderfully happy?”
    â€œOf course.” Zach was none of that. But if saying he was kept her content, he would pretend.
    â€œI mean, I go to all this trouble. I break the greatest news a wife can break to her husband, and you sit there and tell me you have to build a cradle.”
    â€œDo you want the baby to sleep on the floor?”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous.”
    â€œAll right. The bed, then?”
    â€œWhere the baby will sleep isn’t the issue. The issue is how you reacted to the news.”
    â€œBe reasonable. It’s not as if it was a huge surprise.”
    â€œA child is taking shape inside me as we speak. The miracle of new life. The greatest thrill we will ever know. And you sit there as if I just told you a weasel got one of the chickens.”
    â€œIf a weasel got a chicken, I’d be mad. I’m not mad.”
    â€œYou’re not glad, either. Don’t deny you’re not. I can see it in your eyes.”
    Forgetting himself, Zach replied, “Don’t tell me how I feel or how I don’t feel. I should know better than you, and I tell you, I’m happy.”
    â€œOh, Stalking Coyote.”
    Zach inwardly winced. She used his Shoshone name only when she was upset. She confirmed her distress by doing the one thing he couldn’t stand for her to do.
    Louisa burst into tears.

Chapter Three
    Shakespeare McNair cleared his throat. “ ‘To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of trouble, and by opposing, end them.’ ”
    Blue Water Woman looked up from her knitting. She was in the rocking chair, by the window. He was at the table honing his ax. If she had asked him once, she had asked him a thousand times not to hone his ax at the table. He always got tiny flakes all over. But did he listen? No. He was a man.
    â€œIs there a point, or were you talking to hear yourself talk again?” Her English was excellent. She didn’t speak it quite as well as Winona King, but she took great pride in how well she had mastered it. For a Flathead, the white tongue was as strange as a tongue could be.
    Shakespeare harrumphed and stopped honing. “Did you just accuse me of being in love with the sound of my own voice?”
    â€œWhat is it that whites say?” Blue Water