Free Seed of Evil by David Thompson

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 woulddo: 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 tuckedat 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