“How is that?”
“Beautiful but with a razor’s edge. It can take your life as fast as you can blink.”
Randa had never thought of a knife as beautiful. “You have a nice way with words.”
Frowning, Zach slid the Bowie into its sheath. “If I do, it is news to me. But I hope I’ve made my point. I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”
“You would?”
“Of course. You and your family are our friends. We are—” Zach stopped and his eyes darted toward the gully. “Did you see that?”
“What?” Randa looked but saw only the rocks and boulders that lined the gully’s rim.
“I thought I saw a snake.” Zach stuck the tail of the dead rabbit under his belt. He leveled his rifle and thumbed back the hammer and went over, stepping carefully.
Randa followed. She was fascinated by him. He had an air. He moved so quick, too. She looked down into the gully but all she saw was more boulders and rocks. “I don’t see nothin’.”
“Me neither. But I’m sure I did.”
“What kind of snake was it?” Randa remembered the fuss everyone was making over rattlers.
“I can’t rightly say.” Zach shrugged. “Oh well. It’s gone now.” He let down the hammer and jerked the rabbit from under his belt. “Remember what I’ve told you. And don’t stay out here by yourself.” He made for the cabin and the gathering.
Randa lingered, watching him. He sure was forceful. She liked that, too. She idly picked up a small stone and sent it skittering to the bottom of the gully. It clattered noisily when it hit. She went to follow Zach, and stopped. A strange sound had risen. Bending, she tilted her head to hear better. She’d never heard anything like it. It reminded her of the buzzing of a bunch of bees. Near as she could tell it came from the bottom of the gully. She started to go down to investigate.
“Are you coming?”
Randa turned. Zach King had stopped and was waiting for her. She hurried to catch up, saying, “Sorry. I thought I heard something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Maybe bees.”
“There are a lot of them hereabouts. Be careful you don’t get stung.”
“Thank you for lookin’ out for me,” Randa said quietly. She had never had a man do that except her pa and her brother, but she didn’t think of Chickory as a man.
Zach shrugged. “We’re an island of people in a sea of savage. We need to watch out for each other.”
“Goodness, you really do have a way with words,” Randa praised him.
“No one has ever said that to me before,” Zach said. “If I do, it probably comes from being around Shakespeare so much. His speech is as flowery as a rose garden.”
“There you go again.”
Zach smiled.
Randa liked his teeth. They were white and even. She liked his eyes, too. They were as green as grass and as deep as the lake. She envied Louisa King. Without thinking she said, “Your wife sure is lucky to have you.”
“There are days when she doesn’t think so,” Zach said. “I tend to aggravate her now and then.”
“Doin’ what?”
“Being male.”
“How is that an aggravation?”
Zach looked at her. “According to her and my mother and Blue Water Woman and just about every married lady I’ve ever met, it comes naturally. Men can’t help but rub women wrong, as my ma likes to say.”
“My ma would likely say the same,” Randa said. “She’s always naggin’ my pa about one thing or another. Do this or don’t do that and land sakes why can’t he ever listen to her.”
“There you have it,” Zach said.
Randa enjoyed talking to him; he was easy to talk to. She gazed into his eyes and then glanced away. “I hope I meet a fella like you one day. I wouldn’t think he was any aggravation at all.”
“There’s only ever one of us. And you might want someone who doesn’t have my flaws.”
“What would they be?”
At that juncture Emala came around the cabin and jabbed a thick finger at Randa. “There you are. I’ve been lookin’ all over for you. Where did you get to, youngun?”
“I went for a walk.”
“Well, don’t go waltzin’ off without you lettin’ us know. We’re not on the plantation anymore. It ain’t safe. Am I right, Mr. King, or am I right?”
“It’s Zach, and you’re absolutely right.” Zach held out the dead rabbit. “Would you do me a favor and give this to my mother?”
Emala curled up her thick lips in distaste. “There’s blood all over it and half the head is gone.”
Zach wiggled the limp body. “Don’t tell me you’ve never handled game?”
“I have, many a time,” Emala said. “But I’ve never liked blood and the butcherin’ can be mighty messy.” She used her thumb and the first finger of her left hand to take the rabbit by the tail. “It doesn’t have lice, does it? Some dead critters crawl with lice.”
“No more than any other animal.”
Emala beckoned and Randa joined her as she made for a shady spot where the other women were resting. “What were you talkin’ to him about?”
“This and that,” Randa answered. “Why?”
“I saw how you were smilin’ at him. I’ve never seen you smile at any man that a way. It better not be why I think it is.”
“He’s nice, is all.”
“The Kings are decent folks. They’re doin’ more for us than anyone ever has and we should be grateful.”
“I am.”
“Then don’t be walkin’ alone with Zach King. He’s a married man. It’s not proper.”
“All we did was talk. Don’t make more out of it than there was.”
“You don’t tell me what to do. I tell you. And I’m tellin’ you that we must be as nice to the Kings as they’ve been to us.”
“Talkin’ ain’t nice?”
“Don’t sass me, child.” Emala scowled. “You’re startin’ to worry me. You truly are. Until we’re settled in and they’ve accepted us more, you’re not to traipse anywhere with Zachary King. You hear me?”
“Accept us more?” Randa repeated.
“We’ve been with them a good long while, what with crossin’ that prairie and comin’ up into these mountains. But that ain’t the same as bein’ neighbors. Neighbors can talk to neighbors anytime.”
“How will I know when I can talk to him?”
“I’ll tell you.” Emala waddled off. “Mind me, you hear?”
Randa frowned. Her mother was always bossing her around. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it one bit. Then a thought hit her so hard she was jarred to her marrow; her folks intended to live there the rest of their lives. Which was fine and dandy, but as Zach King had pointed out, there were precious few people around. And all the men save her brother and Dega were spoken for. Though from the way Evelyn and Dega were carrying on, he was spoken for, too.
What was she to do for a man of her own?
Chapter Twelve
The fireplace took some doing.
They inserted the saw into the slits they had cut and sawed until they had the shape. Samuel did most of the sawing. He asked to. It was his cabin and he didn’t think it fair or right that Nate and Shakespeare and Zach were doing most of the work.
Nate smiled and handed him the saw.
While this was going on, the women and the Nansusequas and Chickory went off to gather stones to use in the construction. Evelyn and Dega went one way, Waku and his wife and daughters another, Winona and Blue Water Woman and Emala and Randa yet another.
That left Chickory. He didn’t want to go with the women. He especially didn’t want to go with his mother. He loved her dearly, but she was always telling him what to do and then complaining that he didn’t do it right. He didn’t know the Indians well enough to feel comfortable going with them, and he sensed that Evelyn and Dega wanted to be by themselves. That was fine with him. He went off alone, northwest past the gully a
nd into the trees.
A few days ago he had done some exploring and came across a low hill covered with stones that might do.
Chickory hummed as he walked. He kept his hand on the hilt of the knife Shakespeare McNair had given him. Now there was a strange person, he reflected. Half the time, he had no idea whatsoever what that white man was talking about. It was all that Bard stuff. Chickory had never heard of the Bard of Avon; he didn’t even know what a Bard was. Or an Avon, for that matter.
It had surprised him, the old man giving him the knife. He’d never imagined white folks could be like Shakespeare and Nate King. The whites back at the plantation had either bossed him around or looked down their noses at him. It was…Chickory thought hard for the right word…it was refreshing to meet white people who treated him as if his skin color didn’t matter.
Chickory looked down at himself. His skin might not matter but his size sure did. He was too skinny. All lean muscle and bone. His pa said that he would fill out as he grew, but that could take a while. Chickory wished he would fill out now. He wanted to be big and strong, like his father.
It didn’t help that he had lost a lot of weight when he came down sick at Bent’s Fort. No one could figure out why. One of the men who ran the trading post, Ceran St. Vrain, had pestered him with questions. Had he drank any stagnant water? That was the word St. Vrain used: “stagnant.” Chickory had to ask what it meant and St. Vrain said it meant water that had been standing a long time and maybe smelled funny or was brown or some other unusual color. Had he been stung by mosquitoes? St. Vrain wanted to know. Land sakes, Chickory had been stung by an army of them. Had he been bit by any spiders? Chickory remembered one he found in his blankets when he woke up, but he didn’t recall it biting him unless the spider bit him in his sleep.
The crack of a twig brought Chickory out of himself. He stopped and tightened his hand on the knife. If there was one thing he’d learned about the wilds, it was to be cautious. There were bears and those big cats to watch out for, and Nate King had said there were buffalo in the mountains, too, although not nearly as many as down on the prairie.
The brush rustled and out stepped a doe. She was young and small and took short, timid steps, her ears pricked, her nostrils quivering. She had caught his scent but was unsure where he was.
Chickory grinned. He flapped his arms and said, “Boo!”
The doe’s tail shot up and she fled in great bounding leaps, her legs tucked together. Within moments the vegetation swallowed her.
Chuckling, Chickory walked on. He liked the woods, although they sure were spooky. He hadn’t said anything to anyone, but he was particularly scared of being eaten. He kept having dreams, or rather, nightmares, in which a bear or one of those cats or once a critter McNair had called a wolverine, caught him and ate him. In his nightmares he always screamed and tried to get away as their teeth and their claws bit into him. One night he woke up in a cold sweat, afraid he had cried out in his sleep, but the rest of his family slept blissfully on.
Chickory swallowed the memory. No, sir. Being eaten wasn’t a good way to die. Although, now that he thought about it, he couldn’t think of a way that was good. He liked being alive. The world was a wonderful place, and there was a lot of it he had yet to explore. His folks seemed to take it for granted he would live there the rest of his days, but he had other ideas. In a few years he was going to leave the mountains and do some traveling. Maybe he would come back, and maybe he wouldn’t.
Chickory hadn’t told his parents. His pa would likely understand, but his ma would blubber.
Presently the pines and spruce and the oaks thinned, and Chickory came out into an open area near the bottom of the hill. Above him flat rocks and jumbled stones were dotted by a few boulders.
Large round stones, Nate King had said, so that’s what Chickory looked for. He started up and glimpsed movement. Something had darted under a rock.
A lizard, maybe, Chickory thought, or possibly one of those chipmunks. It wasn’t long enough to be a snake. He found a rock he reckoned would be suitable and carried it down and deposited it at the bottom and went back up for another. They were heavy, and after half a dozen he stopped and ran his forearm across his sweaty forehead.
In the trees a pair of birds flitted from branch to branch. One was yellow and the other a dull gray. They alighted and the yellow one broke into marvelous song. Chickory wondered if they might be finches. He wasn’t good with bird names, but there had been finches back at the plantation and these reminded him of a lot of them.
Chickory went on gathering rocks. He would need help getting them all back. He bent and tried to lift one but it was firm in the ground. Prying with his fingertips, he got his fingers underneath, and pulled. The rock rose an inch. Gritting his teeth and flexing, Chickory tried again. This time the rock came off the ground. He raised it to his knees, and stopped.
From under it crawled a snake.
Chickory didn’t understand how a snake could have been under there, as embedded as the rock was. He went to straighten and his breath caught in his throat. The triangle of its head, the pattern of its skin, the segments at the end of the tail—it was a rattlesnake. No sooner did he realize it than the snake coiled and raised baleful eyes in his direction.
Chickory stared back. His ma had told him that the Lord had set mankind over the beasts and that nine times out of ten a person could set a beast to running off just by looking at it.
This must be the tenth time. The rattler stayed where it was.
Chickory didn’t want to get bit. He stood still, his arms starting to hurt from the strain of the heavy rock. The snake went on staring. Its eyes were scary. They weren’t like the eyes of anything Chickory knew. He didn’t like how its tongue kept flicking out at him either. And what a tongue, forked as it was.
Chickory swallowed. He couldn’t hold the rock forever.
The snake stopped rattling. It lowered its head and slowly turned and began to crawl off.
Chickory raised the rock higher—and threw it at the snake. He jumped back as he did, and whooped with glee when the rock thudded down right on the reptile. The head and some of the body poked out from under and it began to hiss and twist and turn. Chickory picked up another big rock and dropped it on top of the flat one.
The rattlesnake went limp.
“Got you, did I?” Chickory gloated. “That’s what you get for spookin’ me.” He kicked at the rocks, but the snake didn’t move. Careful as could be, he slid the rock off. Most of the snake was crushed pulp.
Chickory laughed and smacked his thigh. “I done did it. Killed me a rattlesnake. All by myself.”
Chickory hadn’t had to kill much growing up on the plantation. A few frogs and birds and snakes and that was it.
When his family and the Kings were crossing the prairie his pa had let him shoot game a few times. He would have gotten more, except deer and the like were hard to find and he wasn’t the world’s best shot. Fact was, he was lucky to hit the broadside of a tree from twenty steps away. But he was getting better. Give him time, Nate King had said, and he’d be able to drop a deer at a hundred yards.
Chickory couldn’t wait.
Deep in thought, Chickory carried the gore-spattered rock to his growing pile and was about to set it down when he changed his mind and cast it aside. His mother wouldn’t want no gory rocks in her fireplace. He went back up the hill. Again he thought he saw something dart away.
Chickory came to a hump and couldn’t believe his eyes. Above him were enough flat rocks to make half the fireplace—and rattlesnakes were coiled on a good many of them, sunning themselves. None rose up in alarm or hissed or rattled. Maybe they didn’t realize he was there. He began counting and stopped at eleven. He’d never seen so many rattlers in one place at one time. There were big ones and not so big. All were ugly as sin. It gave him nervous twinges to look at them.
He was lucky he had spotted them. If he hadn’t, he’d have blundered into a nest of fangs and been b
it so many times, he’d have been dead before he could turn around.
The smart thing was to get out of there, but Chickory stayed. He was fascinated. Here was another part of why he liked the wilderness so much.
There was always something new, something unexpected, like those buffalo on the plains and that raccoon they caught in their camp and the black bear that came sniffing around one night.
A rattler stirred. Its head rose a few inches and it looked around and then twisted and crawled off the flat rock toward another flat rock that already had a snake on it.
Chickory thought they would fight. He watched in breathless wonder as the first snake reached the second snake and crawled up over it and lay with their bodies touching. That was all. No hissing or rattling or biting or nothing.
“He your friend?” Chickory said out loud.
Another snake near to him raised its head and the tip of its tail moved, rattling lightly.
Chickory put his hand on his knife. The rattlesnake was flicking its tongue but it didn’t bare its fangs or come toward him. After a bit it lost interest and sank back down, coiling so its head was under its body.
Chickory had seen enough. He backed away, glancing behind him and to either side, alert for more serpents.
On the way down he picked up three flat rocks. It was as many as he could carry.
He started for the cabin site.
“I should tell Pa about the snakes,” Chickory said to himself, then shook his head. If he told his pa, his pa would tell his mother, and his mother would forbid him to ever come anywhere near that hill for as long as he drew breath. She was always doing stuff like that, always spoiling his fun. He decided to keep it a secret. He wouldn’t say a word so he could come back whenever he wanted and watch the snakes. He didn’t consider them much of a threat. They were far from the cabins.
He did wonder where they all came from.
The gully appeared. Chickory hadn’t been down in it, but he planned to go once the cabin was done. He had a lot of exploring to do. The valley was filled with animals and sights worth seeing.
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