Venom

by David Thompson

  “Count coup.”

  “That’s it. What is a coup, anyhow?”

  “I didn’t ask. But I don’t think it’s a thing. I think it’s like hunters who shoot animals and put their heads on the walls.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s not nice, and we didn’t have none of it back home. So you can’t blame—”

  “No,” Samuel said.

  “No what?”

  “The plantation was never ours. It wasn’t our home. It was where we were forced to live, where we were treated the same as the horses and cows and sheep.” Samuel gestured at the broad expanse of valley. “This is our home.”

  The sun was warm on Emala’s face. She watched several geese come in for a graceful landing. A yellow and black butterfly fluttered past. Finches took wing, chirping gaily. “I guess it does have its nice parts.” She took Samuel’s hand. “I’ll do the best I can, but it still scares me.”

  “I won’t ever let anything happen to you.”

  They walked a ways and Samuel said, “I want to thank you, Emala.”

  “For what?”

  “For stickin’ with me through all of this. You’ve had to put up with a lot.”

  “Well, of course I’d stick with you. You’re my husband. A wife is supposed to stick by her man, even when he’s wrong.”

  “You think it’s wrong we ran away? You think it’s wrong I wanted a new life for us? A better life?”

  Emala knew how important it was to him. More important than it was to her. She had been born a slave and never knew anything else. She had been used to that life. This idea of freedom, of doing what she wanted when she wanted, was almost as scary as the wilderness. “You weren’t wrong,” she said so as not to upset him.

  Nate was at his new forge. He had built it several months ago out of rocks he collected along the lake. Nate had mixed the mortar, too, using clay and dirt and water. Shakespeare had offered to help and then sat and sipped blackberry juice Winona had made and kept pointing out that this or that stone wasn’t set right and there were gaps in the mortar. It wasn’t fancy, but it was the next best thing to having a blacksmith handy.

  Nate built it mainly to shoe their horses. Not just his, but everyone else’s in the valley. It didn’t matter much to Winona or Blue Water Woman since the Shoshones and the Flatheads never shod their horses. Or to Shakespeare, who shod his mare only when he expected to ride long distances. It mattered to Nate, though. A lot of hard riding wore a horse’s hooves down and could cause the animal a lot of pain. Shoes spared them from suffering.

  The forge had a small bellows and an anvil, ordered out of a catalog at Bent’s Fort. Ceran St. Vrain had sent word to Nate when they arrived and Nate had rigged an extrastrong travois to a packhorse to haul them back.

  Now, standing under a plank roof supported by four thick poles, a precaution on Nate’s part to protect his equipment from rain and snow, he picked up metal tongs and was about to grip a bar of wrought iron when Samuel and Emala appeared. They had been gone almost an hour and were walking hand in hand, the first instance Nate could recall them doing that. He walked hand in hand with Winona all the time. So did McNair with Blue Water Woman. As Shakespeare once joked, “We’re natural-born romantic cusses.”

  “I hope we’re not interruptin’,” Samuel said.

  Nate set down the tongs and came around the forge. “Not at all. What did you decide?”

  Emala fanned her neck with her hand. “Land sakes, it’s powerful hot under here. It’s like standin’ on the sun.”

  “The forge has to be hot or the metal won’t melt,” Nate said.

  “We found us a spot,” Emala told him. “We’d like for you to come have a look-see and tell us what you think.”

  Nate undid his apron and set it aside. He took his Hawken from where he had propped it. “Show me.”

  They headed north along the lake. Nate held his Hawken with the barrel across his shoulder, his hand on the stock.

  Emala nodded at the rifle. “You don’t go anywhere without that, do you, Mr. King?”

  “It’s Nate, remember? And no, not if I care to go on breathing.”

  “Those things are too heavy for me. My arms get tired. I’d rather go without.”

  “You get used to it.”

  Emala regarded the wooded slopes high above. “I wonder if I’ll ever get used to any of this.”

  “It’s our home,” Samuel said.

  “So you keep remindin’ me. But not yet it ain’t. Not until I have my very own cabin. Which reminds me, how’s that goin’ to work, exactly, Mr. King? I mean, Nate?”

  “We will all pitch in and help build it,” Nate explained. “Raising a cabin, it’s called.”

  “I never been to one of those.”

  Nate noticed a pair of doves in flight. He had always liked doves. His uncle once told him that when they mated it was for life. If one or the other died, the survivor never took another. He never did learn whether that was true.

  “Mr. King?”

  Nate glanced over. Samuel was studying him, his brow furrowed. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I’ve been meanin’ to ask you somethin’ and I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

  “Ask away,” Nate said.

  Emala had an inkling what her husband was curious about. They’d talked about it just the night before. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” Samuel asked.

  “People put out a hand to help, you should accept it and that should be that,” Emala said.

  Nate asked, “What is this about?”

  “You. Your wife. Your family. Your friends,” Samuel ran off a list. “But mostly you and your wife.”

  “What did we do?”

  “That’s just it,” Samuel said. “What haven’t you done? From the moment we met you, you folks have treated us kindly and gone out of your way to do us favors.”

  “For which we’re grateful as can be,” Emala said.

  “That we are,” Samuel concurred. “When we first met you all we had was the clothes on our backs, and you bought us new clothes and gave us guns and protected us all the way here.”

  “Your point?” Nate was unsure what they were leading up to.

  “My point is a question,” Samuel said. “What I would like to know is why. Why did you and your wife do all those things? And why are you still goin’ out of your way to help us?”

  “Because you needed our help then, and you need our help now,” Nate answered.

  “But we were strangers. More than that, we’re black and you’re white. We’re used to whites lookin’ down their noses at us, not treatin’ us as equals. I thought you were up to somethin’ but you weren’t. You were just bein’ you.”

  “I was being me when I took Winona for my wife. You might have noticed that she’s not white, either.”

  “So skin means honest-to-God nothin’ to you?”

  “It’s not a person’s color, it’s the person inside,” Nate said. “Winona isn’t white, but she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. I love her more than I love anything.”

  Nothing more was said until they came to the spot Emala had picked. Nate walked in a circle and said, “There’s plenty of flat ground for a good-size cabin, and you’re close enough to the lake that it won’t be too much of a chore fetching water.”

  “What about that?” Emala nodded toward the gully. “Do we need to worry it will flood if it rains heavy?”

  Nate shook his head. “Even if it does, your cabin will be far enough away to be safe.” He smiled and nodded. “I think you’ve chosen a fine spot for your new home. You shouldn’t have any problems at all.”

  Chapter Eight

  The cabin raising got underway.

  First the flat area was cleared of rocks and everything else. Nate and Shakespeare measured and pounded stakes at the four corners and strung rope between the stakes as guidelines. The foundation stones were laid. Then came the felling of the trees. Cottonwoods and firs were too sl
ender. Spruce was scattered here and there near the site, and there were plenty of oaks, but the tree Nate liked best were pines. Pines were abundant and there were enough of them near the same size.

  Nate and Shakespeare and Zach all owned axes. Nate owned two, and lent his extra to Samuel. Nate picked a cluster of trees and set to work. With each stroke his ax bit deep and sent chips flying.

  Shakespeare was an old hand at felling trees, and Zach had learned from his father.

  Samuel had never used an ax in his life. On the plantation most of his work had been in the cotton fields, and you didn’t chop cotton with an ax. He watched them, then imitated what they were doing. He soon found it wasn’t as easy as they made it seem. He swung hard enough, but his ax didn’t go in as far and he wasn’t making much headway.

  A hand tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Watch me,” Nate said. He showed how to grip the ax and how to swing at an angle so the blade penetrated. “You turn your hips as you swing and put your shoulders into it.”

  Samuel tried it a few times and smiled at his improvement. “I’m obliged,” he said.

  Nate wasn’t done. “Another thing is that when you pull the ax back, don’t jerk it. Swing and pull back smoothly the moment the ax has gone in as far as it will go. That way you don’t jar your body and wear yourself out. It’s a steady motion.” He demonstrated. “See?”

  “Let me try.” Samuel stepped to the trunk and planted himself and swung. The ax became wedged and he had to tug to work it free. “What did I do wrong?”

  “You swung too hard. Take easier strokes and let the ax do most of the work.”

  It wasn’t long before Samuel got the hang of it, but once he did he went at it with fierce desire. These were the logs for his new home and he couldn’t wait to have it done.

  Tree after tree crashed down. The women and Evelyn and the Nansusequas used hatchets to trim the branches and threw them into a pile.

  Shortly before noon Winona and Blue Water Woman and Lou stopped trimming to set out the midday meal. Blankets were spread, as if it were a picnic, and food they had prepared the night before was placed on the blankets. There was venison and potatoes and green beans and carrots, plus a pie Lou had baked.

  The Nansusequas had brought rabbit stew. Waku and Dega came to Nate and offered to hunt meat for the supper pot and Nate said that would be a great help. He was resting on a stump. Winona walked over with a glass of water and smiled and handed it to him.

  “You look thirsty.”

  Nate was sweating from head to toe. “I could drink the lake dry,” he boasted.

  Evelyn joined them and asked, “Do you need me for anything?”

  “You can help trim more branches when the men go back to work,” Winona said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’d like to go hunt with Dega.”

  Nate lowered the glass. “You?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “You want to hunt?”

  A pink tinge crept into Evelyn’s cheeks. “Yes. Me. We have to eat, don’t we?”

  “You’ve never liked to kill,” Nate reminded her. Yet recently she had gone off to the prairie after buffalo with the Nansusequas. Now this.

  “I get hungry the same as everyone else.”

  “Are you sure that’s the only reason you want to go?”

  The pink in Evelyn’s cheek darkened to red. “What else would there be, Pa?”

  Winona interceded with, “You go right ahead, Daughter. Waku and Dega are waiting.”

  Evelyn grinned and kissed her mother on the cheek and spun and hurried off giggling.

  Nate upended the glass and smacked his lips. “Right considerate of you to fuel their fire.”

  “I do not see flames anywhere.”

  “Cute,” Nate said. “It surprises me, is all, you letting her go off with him. At this rate they’ll want a cabin of their own inside of a month.”

  “She is young and in love. Were I to deny her, she would sneak around and see him behind our backs. Is that what you want?”

  “I hope we’ve raised her better than that.”

  “The heart wants what the hearts wants,” Winona said. “The best we can do is guide her.”

  Nate wasn’t entirely sure he approved. He liked Dega. The boy had many fine qualities. But he didn’t see Evelyn as ready for such a big step. He watched her walk off, both she and Dega smiling broadly. His daughter—in love. He could hardly believe it.

  The work resumed. Horses were brought, ropes were rigged, and the logs were dragged to the site. They had to skirt the gully each time; it was directly in the way. Once, as Nate was guiding a claybank pulling a log, he thought he glimpsed a snake. He almost stopped to look for it but remembered his folly of the snake hunt and went on by.

  For two days they felled and trimmed and hauled large pine after large pine. The logs were laid out in rows. Nate and Shakespeare then went from one to the next, notching them. The notches had to be cut just right. Too shallow, and the logs wouldn’t fit snug. Too deep, and the ends tended to weaken over time.

  Samuel drank it all in. He asked if he could notch a few and Nate showed him how. He got the first notch done and stood back.

  “How did I do?”

  Nate inspected it. “Right fine.”

  “I hope you don’t mind that I want to help. You know why it’s important to me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “If there is ever somethin’ I can do for you…” Samuel didn’t finish.

  “No need,” Nate said.

  “As much as I respect you, there is. You’ve treated me more decent than anyone on this earth. I would die for you if I had to.”

  Nate chuckled and clapped Samuel on the back. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “I’m serious, Mr. King. I keep bringin’ this up because you don’t realize what it means to me and my family. We have a place to live, thanks to you. We’ll have a new home, thanks to you. Most of all, we’re free, thanks to you and Winona. Free, after all those years as slaves.” Samuel bowed his head and coughed. “I have wanted my freedom more than I have ever wanted anything. I dreamed of it when I worked in the fields. I dreamed of it at night. To finally have my dream come true…” He coughed again.

  It gave Nate a lot to think about. That night, as he lay weary but content in his bed with Winona’s cheek on his shoulder and her hair tickling his ear, he remarked, “I like that Samuel Worth. He’s a good man at heart.”

  “He is like someone else I know,” Winona said.

  “Touch the Clouds?”

  Winona laughed and poked him in the ribs. “My cousin is a good man, too, but he is not as good as you.”

  “I bet Blue Water Woman would say the same about Shakespeare and Lou about Zach and Tihi about Waku.”

  “They would, yes. But you are special.”

  “How so?”

  Winona kissed him. “You are mine.”

  It was a while before they got to sleep. Nate slept well and woke before dawn. He carefully eased out from under Winona’s arm and slipped out of bed. Rising, he stretched, then went through his morning ritual of donning his buckskins and powder horn and ammo pouch and possibles bag and going outdoors to heed nature’s need.

  The sky was still dark. Stars sparkled in the firmament. A strong breeze stirred his hair. He breathed deep of the smell of the lake and the dank scent of the nearby forest and listened to the hoot of an owl. Instead of using the outhouse he walked around to the corral and heeded nature there while checking that the horses were all right. Of late they had been acting up. He suspected a mountain lion or maybe a bear, although he had not seen sign of either.

  Nate yawned and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He went to the lake. The water was tranquil. He dipped his hand in and splashed some on his face. Somewhere a goose honked, as if startled. He remembered when Zach and Evelyn were little and he taught them to fish. Evelyn hated it. As he recollected, she called fish “icky” and never did
develop a taste for fish meat. Neither did he. He much preferred succulent venison or juicy buffalo meat or the tastiest meat of all, cougar.

  Rising, Nate turned to go back to the cabin. He took two steps. Directly in front of him something hissed. He froze, suspecting a snake. The rattling of the serpent’s tail proved him right.

  Not many people knew that rattlesnakes did most of their hunting at night. This one was after prey—and Nate had almost stepped on it. Try as he might, Nate could barely see the thing. It wasn’t big, but it wasn’t a rattlesnake’s size that mattered—it was their venom. He held himself still except for his hand, which he inched toward his belt. His fingers brushed leather and he nearly gave a start. He had done something he hadn’t done in years; he had come outside without his pistols. Anger flared. If he had told the kids once he had told them a thousand times to never, ever make that blunder, and here he had done it himself. He didn’t have his rifle or his tomahawk either. All he had was his Bowie, and only because the sheath was attached to his belt.

  Nate eased his hand to the hilt of the big knife. He began to slowly draw it out.

  The snake’s head rose like a black stick and the rattling grew louder. It was preparing to strike.

  Nate debated trying to spring aside. He was quick, but rattlesnakes were quick, too. He almost had the knife out.

  Suddenly the snake stopped rattling. Its head dropped and it slithered swiftly away toward some rocks.

  Whipping the Bowie high, Nate went to throw it but changed his mind. He had practiced until he could hit the center of a target consistently at about ten feet. But the snake would be a lot harder to hit and he might damage the blade. Instead, he skirted the rocks and went inside. He would deal with the rattler when the sun came up.

  Nate rekindled the fire in the fireplace. He had been toying with the notion of buying Winona a stove. The catalog at Bent’s Fort listed a new kind made all of metal. They weighed a lot and it would cost dear to have it shipped west from St. Louis, but he thought it might make a nice surprise. From what he had heard, ladies back in the States loved them.