Venom (2 page)

“Careful,” Nate cautioned.

“Isn’t he beautiful, Pa?”

Nate had never thought of snakes as anything but, well,
snakes.
This one was about three feet long with splashes of dark brown edged with black. Its vertical pupils lent its face a vicious cast, as if it couldn’t wait to sink its fangs into something. He would just as soon shoot it and be done with it.

Evelyn jabbed and took another step—and the rattler did the last thing she expected. It launched itself under her rifle at her legs.

Nate reacted purely on reflex. He drew a pistol and fired from the hip. He didn’t think, he didn’t aim, he pointed and shot and the rattlesnake’s head exploded in a shower of gore.

Evelyn had started to recoil. Bits of snake spattered her arms and face and a piece of snake flesh flew into her mouth and partway down her throat. Gagging, she doubled over and nearly swallowed it.

All Nate could think of was how close she had come to being bitten. He put his hand on her shoulder and asked, “Are you all right?”

Evelyn couldn’t talk. She was coughing and hacking, trying to dislodge the piece. Her stomach contracted and she nearly vomited. She tasted bitter bile, and coughed some more, and the grisly tidbit shot out of her mouth and into her hand. “Lord,” she breathed, afraid she would be sick.

The headless body was thrashing about. In a fit of anger, Nate placed his boot on it and mashed it into the dirt. The body ruptured, spewing its insides. He kicked it away in disgust.

“Thanks, Pa,” Evelyn said.

“I told you. Rattlers aren’t to be trusted.”

Winona came around the corner wearing her apron, her rifle in hand. “Why did you shoot?” she anxiously asked.

Nate nodded at the viper. “Our youngest nearly got herself bit.”

Incredibly, the snake was still moving. Winona walked up to it and remarked, “Another rattlesnake? I saw a couple while you were away. And Blue Water Woman was saying how she’s seen more this year than in any year she can remember.”

“Maybe we should have a hunt,” Nate suggested. If there were that many rattlers around, they needed to be thinned out. “Kill as many as we can so we don’t have to worry about stepping on one in the dark.”

Evelyn was beginning to feel a little better. She uncurled and ran her sleeve over her mouth. “Can’t we leave them be? The only reason this one tried to bite me is because I was poking it.”

“We’ll talk later,” Nate said. He caught Winona’s eye and motioned. She immediately understood.

Gently taking Evelyn’s arm, Winona said, “Come inside, Daughter. We will heat water for your bath, and I will cook venison and wild asparagus for our supper.”

Nate stripped his bay and the packhorse and put them in the corral with the others. He had been in the saddle most of the day and could stand to stretch his legs. On a whim he walked to the lake. Out on the water ducks and geese paddled placidly about. A fish leaped clear and dived. An eagle glided down and rose up again, flapping strongly, a fish in its talons.

Nate strolled along the shore. It felt wonderful to be home. He’d missed the valley, missed the serenity. He didn’t fool himself, though. In the shadowed ranks of the thick forest prowled bears and mountain lions and wolves. Hostiles could pay them a visit at any time. Then there was Nature herself, as temperamental a mistress as ever unleashed a tempest.

Peace in the wilderness was the exception, not the
norm, a condition to be savored as someone might savor a fine wine or brandy.

Nate was a master at savoring. The hardships he’d endured over the years had taught him the value of stopping to smell the roses now and then, a lesson some people never learned. They became so caught up in life that they forgot it was meant to be lived.

“Say there, mister. Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Nate was so deep in thought, he hadn’t realized he was no longer alone. He looked up and smiled. “Zach!”

“Me,” his son said. “I saw riders and figured it must be you. You were gone an awful long time.” Not quite as tall or as broad as Nate, Zach was swarthy enough to pass for a full-blooded Indian. His eyes, though, betrayed his white half; they were a piercing green.

They hugged. Nate had never been averse to showing that he cared for his loved ones. Some men were. Some hardly ever hugged their wives and children, and thought the little they did was more than enough.

“I’ve missed you, Pa,” Zach said warmly, clapping his father on the back. “I wish I could have gone with you.”

“You know you couldn’t. Not with your wife in the family way.” Nate studied him. “What have you been up to while I was gone?”

“Not much. I had a scrape with the Indians in the next valley. And a Blood warrior stole Louisa, but I got her back. Other than that, things have been quiet.”

“You don’t say.” Nate hid his alarm. Unlike Shakespeare, who exaggerated everything, Zach tended to make molehills out of mountains. “You and your
missus are invited to our place tonight to tell us all about it.”

“If Louisa is up to it,” Zach said. “She has started to show, and some days she is sickly.”

“Your mother had her bouts, too,” Nate told him. “Carrying a baby wears women down.” It would wear him down. The swelling, the sickness, the need to eat for two instead of one; he didn’t know how women bore it.

“Listen to us.” Zach chuckled. “Talking about making babies instead of lifting scalps.”

“I thought you gave that up.”

“I have,” Zach said. “For now.”

Nate decided to change the subject. “Tell me something. Have you seen many snakes around this summer?”

“What kind? I saw a few garters and a black snake and the tail end of what might have been a pine snake.”

“The tail end?”

“It was going down a hole.”

A raven flew over, the swish of its wings loud in the rarefied mountain air.

“How about rattlers?” Nate asked.

“Come to think of it, I’ve seen a few.”

“How many, exactly?” Nate pressed him.

“What does it matter? We see rattlers a lot.”

“It’s important,” Nate urged.

Zach scratched his chin. “Let’s see. Nine or ten, I reckon, since the weather warmed.”

“That’s more than usual, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. I don’t pay much attention. You’ve seen one snake, you’ve seen them all. Why?”

“I’m thinking of organizing a rattlesnake hunt,” Nate revealed.

Zach snorted in amusement. “Are you giving up buffalo and elk and deer for snake meat?”

“There are too many around.”

“There are too many chipmunks, too. Do we exterminate them next?”

“Very funny. But your sister was almost bit.”

“If she was, I’d feel sorry for the snake,” Zach joked. “Likely as not,
she
would poison
it.
”

“Now, now,” Nate said.

“I don’t see the sense to it, but if you want to hunt rattlers, count me in. Someone has to watch your back so one doesn’t bite you in the behind.”

Nate gazed to the north at his son’s distant cabin. Wisps of smoke rose from the stone chimney. “How is Lou coming along otherwise?”

“Fine. She swears she can feel the baby kick, but it can’t be nowhere near big enough yet.”

“You’ll make a fine father,” Nate predicted.

“So she says and so Uncle Shakespeare says and so Ma says and so you say,” Zach recited without much conviction.

“You don’t sound as sure.”

Zach looked out over the lake and then at the sky and then down at the tips of his moccasins. “Do you want the truth?” he quietly asked.

“Always.”

“I’m scared, Pa. More than I’ve ever been scared. I have an awful feeling I won’t make a good father at all.”

Nate stood next to him, their shoulders nearly touching, and pretended to be interested in the lake. A male and female mallard were a short ways out, swimming side by side. “Why won’t you?”

“I’m not ready. I have a temper, remember? I’ve done things that have gotten me in a lot of trouble.”

“When we’re young we all do things we wouldn’t do when we are older. It’s normal.”

“Is it normal to be taken into custody by the army and put on trial for murder?”

“Well, no.”

“Is it normal to have to make worm food of as many people as I have and get a reputation as a killer?”

“Hold on,” Nate said. “When a hostile is out to count coup on you or a white man is out to slit your throat because he doesn’t like that you are half-and-half, you have to defend yourself.”

“I don’t feel guilty over any of that. I’m just saying I might not be fit to be a good father. Not like you. For long as I can remember, whenever I needed you, there you were. Always ready to help. Just as you’re trying to help me now.”

“You’re my son,” Nate said.

“I don’t know as I have it in me to do the same with mine.”

“We never do until we’re put to the test. I didn’t know when I married your mother that I’d be a good father. Best I can recall, I was as scared as you. I thought I would mess up. I thought she was crazy to think I wouldn’t. But she was right, as she nearly always is.”

“Ma is smart, that’s for sure.”

“The secret is to take it one day at a time. Do the best you can each of those days and let the rest take care of themselves.”

Zach frowned. “I’ll try. But I wish I had your confidence.”

“You do. You just don’t know it yet.” Nate put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Is that all that’s bothering you?”

“It’s enough. But no. There’s more. There’s the other big thing.”

“I’m listening.”

“The blood thing.”

“Oh. That.”

“All my life I have had to put up with people hating me because I’m a breed. Whites hate breeds because we’re part Indian and a lot of Indians hate breeds because we’re half white.”

“There is a lot of stupid in this world,” Nate said.

“There’s more stupid than smart,” Zach said. “Look at what it did to me. It got so I’d hanker to shoot anyone who so much as looked at me crosswise. I got to hate the haters as much as they hated me.”

“You have remarkable restraint. There’s a good chunk of the population still breathing who shouldn’t be.”

Zach chuckled. “Sometimes you sound like Uncle Shakespeare.”

“That’s scary.”

“Seriously, Pa. I don’t put up with people hating me and I am damn sure not going to put up with people hating my boy or girl because they happened to be born of mixed-blood parents.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself. Look at you and your sister. You are half-and-half, and it shows. Your sister is half-and-half, and it doesn’t. She took more after my side of the family. It could be your child will be like her. Or maybe your mother’s side will come through and she will look to be a full-blooded Indian and no one will guess the truth.”

“I doubt that. I’m only half and Lou is all white so maybe our kid will be as you say, like Evelyn.”

“You have an issue with that?”

“An issue?”

“I’m trying to talk like your mother so everyone will think I’m as smart as she is.”

“Oh. No, I meant an issue how? I don’t resent the red part of me, if that’s what you’re saying. There are days when I liked it more than the white part.”

“Those must be the days I made you clean your room.”

“I just want my boy or girl to be happy. I want them to have a good life.”

“See? You’re doing it already.”

“Doing what?”

“Being a good father and your baby hasn’t even been born yet.”

Zach smiled. “You have a knack. I hope I do half as good as you.”

“Take each problem as it comes up and don’t fret, and you’ll do just fine,” Nate predicted.

They were silent a bit, watching the waterfowl, until Zach said, “Care to come say hi to Lou? She’ll be tickled to see you.”

“I would like that, yes,” Nate said.

As they turned, someone yelled Nate’s name. Winona had come back out and was beckoning.

“Ma wants you.” Zach stated the obvious.

“And when she cracks her whip, I flinch.”

“Oh, Pa.”

“Tell Lou I’ll visit later.”

Nate hurried over. He had lived with his wife for so long and knew her so well that he could tell when something was urgent. “Are we under attack?”

“Shakespeare needs you. He sent her to fetch you,” Winona said, nodding toward Randa Worth.

Randa was about Evelyn’s age, a sleek young girl about to bloom as a woman. It was her blooming that had gotten the Worths in trouble. One of the
plantation owners had taken a fancy to her. Samuel slew the man to keep her from being raped and the family had to run for their lives.

“What’s wrong?” Nate asked.

“It’s one of his horses,” Randa said. “It’s dead and he wanted you to come see.”

“What killed it? A mountain lion?”

“No, sir. He thinks maybe it was a rattlesnake.”

The mare lay on her side at the back of the corral. She had died sometime early the night before, and her body was stiff and starting to bloat and gave off a smell. She would smell a lot worse before another day was out. It wasn’t the white mare McNair usually rode. It was a pack animal.

“What do you think?” Shakespeare asked.

Nate was examining a leg. “I think this is a horse.”

Shakespeare snorted. “Wilt thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an instant?” he quoted.

“At least you say it’s wit.”

“I was being charitable, Horatio.” Shakespeare touched a spot on the mare’s front leg below the knee. “Right there. Do those look like puncture marks to you?”

Nate bent close. “Could be. But if they are, it couldn’t have been a big snake.”

“Small rattlers are as deadly as the big ones,” Shakespeare mentioned. “It’s not their size. It’s the venom.”

His wife, Blue Water Woman, was coming toward them. Over by the cabin Winona was talking to Samuel and Emala Worth.

Blue Water Woman was a Flathead. She wore a buckskin dress fashioned different from Winona’s; the waist was higher and it had longer sleeves, and where Winona liked blue beads, Blue Water Woman had decorated her dress with red and yellow. Her
arms were folded across her bosom. “I am sorry, husband,” she said to McNair.

“For what, pray tell?”

“I should have noticed sooner.”

“How so? You told me the horses were fine when you checked on them last evening. And when you came out this morning the others were milling near the gate and blocked your view so you couldn’t have seen her lying here.”

“I should have been more observant,” Blue Water Woman said. “I feel bad.”

“Did you see any snakes near your cabin while we were away?” Nate asked. “Any rattlesnakes.”

“Now that you mention it, yes. I saw two. A big one not long after Shakespeare and you left, over near the woods. And a small one just a few sleeps ago, by the woodpile.”

“The woodpile, you say?”

Nate and Shakespeare looked at each other. They walked out of the corral and around McNair’s cabin to a high stack of firewood, mostly pine and oak. The others followed.

An ax was leaning against the logs. At one end the stack had collapsed and dozens were in a heap.

“Odds are it’s gone,” Shakespeare said.

“Sometimes they find a spot they like and stick,” Nate said. He nudged a log with his foot and stooped and rolled a few from the pile. “Maybe it’s still in here.” He reached for another log and a thin bolt of scales and fangs shot out from between two others. There was no warning. No rattling or hissing. He jerked his hand back but wasn’t quick enough. The fangs sank into his sleeve.

“Nate!” Winona cried.

Emala Worth screamed.

Nate whipped his arm from side to side but the rattlesnake clung on. It had no choice; its fangs were caught fast.

“Horatio!” Shakespeare bellowed, and pointed at the ground.

Nate placed his arm flat. The viper twisted and squirmed and rattled, frantic to free itself.

“Let me,” Shakespeare said, and stepped on it, pinning it behind the head. “Now you can pull it off.”

Instead Nate drew his Bowie. He tapped the tip on McNair’s moccasin and Shakespeare moved his foot half an inch. Nate slashed, severing the head from the body. Shakespeare raised his leg and the body went on twisting and whipping about.

“Oh Lordy!” Emala exclaimed.

Nate raised his arm and stared at the head. The head stared back. He sheathed the Bowie and reached over his wrist and tried to pry off the head. It was stuck fast.

Winona came to his side and placed her warm hand on his. “Are you all right?”

Nate nodded.

“It didn’t bite you?”

“It tried real hard.” Nate smiled and kissed her on the check and she surprised him considerably by kissing him on the mouth. She rarely did that around others.

“It scared me,” Winona said.

“It scared me, too.”

Shakespeare chortled and said, “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks! It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!”

“That was sweet of you,” Winona said.

“Why is it he never quotes that to me?” Blue Water Woman asked.

“Uh-oh,” Shakespeare said.

They all laughed.

Emala Worth stared at each of them and shook her head. “How can you be so happy after Mr. King was nearly bit? That was awful. I thought my heart would stop.”

“Rattlesnake bites don’t always kill,” Nate remarked.

“They do often enough that most people don’t keep them as pets,” Shakespeare said.

“Most?” Winona repeated.

“I knew a Southern gent years ago. Before I ever came west. He kept a dozen or so in a shack. Used them in their church service.”

Winona showed her confusion. “A church, you say? I have seen them when my husband took me to St. Louis. It is where whites worship the Great Mystery.”

“I was raised Mennonite,” Shakespeare said. “We had a meeting hall, but it was the same thing.”

“Why do whites use snakes in a church? Nate has never told me that.”

“He tends to be forgetful,” Shakespeare said. “Infants often are.”

Winona actually giggled.

“I am right here,” Nate said.

“The snakes?” Winona said to McNair.

“You’re familiar with the Bible? I know Horatio has a copy in his little library—”

“Little?” Nate said.

“I am familiar with it,” Winona responded. “I
have not read it through as he has, but he has read much of it to me and I have read a little on my own. I speak the white tongue much better than I read or write it.”

“You are a marvel,” Shakespeare said. “But back to the Bible. In it are all sorts of sayings about what we should and shouldn’t do. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not kill. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Be perfect as thy Father in heaven is perfect.”

“Does it mention snakes?”

“There’s the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the one who tricks Eve into taking a bite of the forbidden fruit. Some folks say that wasn’t a serpent at all but Satan.”

“Nate has told me about him. Satan is the one whites say brings much evil into the world.”

“Has he told you about the part where people who believe in the Almighty can handle snakes?”

“I do not remember him ever saying anything about that, no.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Shakespeare said to Nate.

Winona turned. “I do not understand, husband. What kind of snakes does the Bible say they can pick up?”

“It’s in one of the four Gospels,” Nate explained. “Toward the end of Mark. It says that those who believe will be able to cast out devils and speak in new tongues and pick up serpents.”

When he didn’t go on Winona said, “That is all? Serpents? Does it say poisonous serpents?”

“No.”

“Does it say rattlesnakes or some other kind of snake that can kill when it bites?”

“No and no.”

“It just says serpents? But isn’t the word ‘serpent’ another word for ‘snake.’”

“Yes and yes.”

“I still do not understand,” Winona admitted.

“Some whites think it means poisonous snakes,” Nate elaborated. “Maybe because the next part says that those who believe can drink any deadly thing and it won’t harm them.”

“Are you saying that some whites like to drink snake venom?”

Shakespeare chortled. “Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t put it past a few lunkheads to try. But there are folks who think Mark is talking about poisonous snakes. So when they worship, they pick up rattlesnakes and copperheads and the like and handle them to show they have true faith.”

“Please do not take this the wrong way,” Winona said, “but whites are very strange.”

“I know that better than anyone,” Blue Water Woman said. “I live with a crazy white.”

“Here now,” Shakespeare said. “What did I do to deserve that? I’m as ordinary as butter.”

Blue Water Woman looked at Nate. “Do you spend your whole day quoting a writer who died more winters ago than anyone can remember?”

“I do not,” Nate said. “I think that would be silly.”

Shakespeare turned red in the face.

“And you?” Blue Water Woman said to Samuel. “Do you go around quoting a dead man all day?”

“Heck no, ma’am,” Samuel said. “To be honest, I can’t read worth a lick. I couldn’t quote one if I wanted to.”

Blue Water Woman smiled at McNair. “I have made my point.”

“How the blazes did we get on this subject?” Shakespeare complained.

Emala said, “I thought we were talkin’ snakes.”

The whole while, Nate had been prying at the head. He finally got it off and threw it away and stood. “I propose we organize a snake hunt. Shakespeare has lost a horse and I nearly got bit and my daughter nearly stepped on one, all since we got back.”

“What about them?” Shakespeare asked with a nod at the Worths. “Weren’t you fixing to raise a cabin?”

“Samuel and his family can stay with us,” Nate said. “Tomorrow we hunt. The day after we’ll start on their new home.” He turned to the Worths. “That is, if you two don’t mind?”

Emala took Samuel’s big arm in hers. “Mr. King, we were talkin’ about you last night and Samuel, he said you don’t know how we feel about you, and now I see he’s right. You surely don’t.”

“Feel how?”

It was Samuel who answered. “Do you know what it’s like to be a slave?” He didn’t wait for Nate to answer. “Of course you don’t. You’re white. But I was born a slave. Emala and me, both. We were told how to behave and where to live and what work we were to do. Our masters—that’s what they called themselves and that’s what we were to call them—our
masters
lorded it over us. We hardly had any say. I hated it. I hated it so much I had a powerful ache deep in me that wouldn’t go away.”

Nate listened with interest. He had known the Worths for a few months now, and this was the first time Samuel had gone into detail about their old life.

“I hated bein’ made to do work I didn’t want to do. I hated bein’ made to live in a shack barely big enough for two people let alone four. I hated that I had to do what our masters said or I’d be whipped.”

“How terrible,” Winona interjected.

“You don’t know the half of it, Mrs. King,” Samuel said sadly. “But my point is this. I wanted out. I wanted a new life. I wanted to be a free man, to do as I please when I please. I wanted it with all I am. But I never became a runner. I wasn’t sure we could survive.”

“You’ve done fine if you ask me,” Nate said.

“We’ve done fine thanks to
you.
You befriended us. You helped us against the slave hunters. You brought us across the prairie to the mountains. You said we could come live in your valley if we wanted and have a place of our own.”

“You saved us,” Emala said.

Nate didn’t quite know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

“We owe you,” Samuel said. “We owe you more than we can ever repay. So you want to wait a day to start our cabin? We don’t mind. Hell, wait a month if you have to.”

“What have I told you about swearin’?” Emala said.

“Not now, woman.”

Nate said, “You don’t owe me anything. I did the same for you as I’d do for anyone.”

“That’s another thing,” Samuel said. “You look at us, you don’t see the color of our skin.”

“You don’t know how rare that is,” Emala said. “You don’t know how special that makes you.”

“I’m just me,” Nate said.

“A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy,”
Shakespeare quoted. “He hath borne me on his back a thousand times.”

“Enough about me,” Nate said. “We have a problem and it has to be dealt with. Tomorrow we hunt snakes.”