Venom (5 page)

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 slender. 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.

He went to the cupboard and took down the coffee tin. He filled the pot with water from a bucket on the counter, and took the pot to the fireplace. From
another cupboard he helped himself to a corn dodger and sat in the rocking chair and nibbled while the coffee heated.

Another rattlesnake.
Nate told himself it was nothing to be bothered about. Rattlesnakes were as common as rabbits. Most years, he would spot a few. Unless they were close to his cabin he usually left them alone. That there were so many of late was troublesome, but after the fiasco of his hunt, he figured he wouldn’t make an issue of it.

The dodger was delicious. Winona had learned to make them just for him, and she added honey to the cornmeal. No sooner did he think of her than the bedroom door opened and out she came tying the purple robe he had bought for her.

“Tsaangu beaichehku.”

It was Shoshone for “good morning.”
“Tsaangu beaichehku,”
Nate replied, drinking in her beauty. He never tired of looking at her, of being with her. That she cared for him as deeply as he cared for her was a gift beyond measure. “Sleep well?”

“Haa.”

Shoshone for “yes.” “We are speaking your tongue today, I take it?” Nate said.

Winona smiled and ran a hand through her hair. She padded in her bare feet over to the rocker and bent and kissed him lightly on the lips. “We can speak whichever tongue you want, husband.”

“We’ll speak yours, then. It embarrasses me that you speak mine better than me.”

Winona rubbed her fingers over his beard. She loved to do that. As she loved to feel his muscles and to listen to him breathe in the quiet of the night. “I will fix breakfast.” She moved to the counter. “How soon do you go off to chop more trees?”

“I’m supposed to meet Shakespeare about an hour after sunup. Should give me enough time.”

“For what?”

Nate told her about the rattlesnake.

In the act of smearing grease in a pan, Winona looked up. “Why not let it be?”

“Can’t.”

“I have never known you to make such a fuss over snakes. It reminds me of Lame Bear.”

“Isn’t he that old man who can hardly walk? Kin of yours on your mother’s side?”

“He is the one, yes. With him it is flies. He goes around the village killing all the flies he can.”

“Are you saying I’m feebleminded?”

Winona smiled sweetly. “Not yet. But you are working on it.”

Nate didn’t find the snake. He poked among the rocks and turned over some of the larger ones, but it was gone. In annoyance he kicked the ground and then headed for the cabin site.

Shakespeare and Zach were already there and Shakespeare was regaling the Worths with a tale of his early years. McNair winked and grinned at Nate and went on with his story.

“So there I was, all alone in Blackfoot country in the cold of winter with the snow so deep only a few treetops showed and—”

“Wait a minute,” Randa said. “Are you tryin’ to tell us the snow was so deep it buried the
trees?
”

“Oh, come now, Mr. McNair,” Emala said.

Samuel and Chickory both grinned.

“Believe it or not, ladies,” Shakespeare responded. “I’ll have you know that I am a veritable fount of veracity.”

“A what?” Randa asked.

“It means he always tells the truth,” Nate explained, “except when he opens his mouth.”

The Worths all laughed.

Shakespeare feigned indignation. “Your fine wit, Horatio, is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.”

“Was that that dead guy you always talk like?” Chickory asked. “It sounded peculiar like this talk does.”

Nate smothered a laugh of his own.

“Yes, that was William S.,” Shakespeare answered. “The finest scribe who ever drew breath.”

Emala said, “Go on with your story. That other fella I can’t hardly ever understand.”

McNair cleared his throat. “Very well. So there I was, alone in Blackfoot country, with snow and ice everywhere. The Blackfeet had taken my horse and my pack animal and I was stranded afoot. I had to walk out. I’d gone about ten miles in the fifty-below weather when—”

“Wait a minute,” Randa interrupted again. “Did you say fifty
below?
”

“Why, Mr. McNair, nothin’ is ever that cold,” Emala said.

“I will have you know, madam, that in some parts of the north country it does, indeed, get that cold, and colder. With the wind blowing it can easily reach seventy-five below.”

“Land sakes. The tales you tell,” Emala said.

“Go on,” Samuel urged.

McNair cleared his throat again. “So anyway, I came to a river that was frozen over and—”

“Which river?” Chickory asked.

“What?”

“Which river was it?”

“I don’t know as it even had a name. A lot of rivers back then didn’t and many still don’t. But if it’s a name you need, some of the Indians called it the Sweet Grass River.”

“Why did they call it that?” Randa asked.

“Because it cut through the prairie, I believe,” Shakespeare said with a trace of exasperation. “The name isn’t important. The important thing is what happened when I tried to cross it. You see, it had
frozen over, but when I was about halfway across the ice crackled and started to break just like—”

Emala held up a hand. “Hold on. You told us it was fifty below. Why, mercy me, that ice had to be five feet thick. How could it crack?”

“It just did.”

“But you don’t weigh all that much and back then you were likely skinnier. Am I right?”

“Yes, you are, but you see—”

Emala shook her head. “No. It don’t hardly seem possible. But go on with your story if you want.”

“Thank you.” Shakespeare sighed. “I was in the middle of the river and the ice started to crack. I tried to run, but the ice was too slippery and I kept falling. Just when I thought I might make it, down I went. I managed to catch hold of the edge of the ice with my arms but I lost my rifle and it sank out of sight and—”

“You must have been powerful cold,” Randa said.

“It’s a miracle you didn’t freeze solid,” Emala mentioned.

“I might have,” Shakespeare acknowledged. “But just then a grizzly happened by and spotted me dangling there. I was scared to death, as you can imagine. I was even more scared when he came over and sniffed me and—”

“Wait a minute,” Randa said. “The ice was thick enough to hold one of those giant bears, but it wouldn’t hold you?”

“It came from the shore side where the ice was thicker,” Shakespeare said. “I was out in the middle. Anyway, it sniffed me a few times and then opened its mouth and I figured I was a goner. I expected it to chomp on my head and that would be the end of me. But—”

“What was its breath like?” Chickory asked.

“What?”

“Its breath. Dog breath always stinks. I bet bear breath stinks even worse. Did it make you gag?”

Shakespeare looked at Nate and Nate pretended to be interested in some clouds.

“I was too scared to pay much attention. All I remember is its teeth and how I thought I was doomed, when lo and behold, that griz went and bit down on the back of my shirt and lifted me right out of the water and dragged me in to shore.”

“Let me guess the end of your story,” Samuel said. “It dragged you to shore and ate you.”

Emala and the children tittered and cackled.

“I am done,” Shakespeare declared.

“No. Please,” Emala said. “We want to hear the rest. What happened next? How did you get away?”

“I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots,” Shakespeare quoted.

“I don’t know what any of that meant,” Emala said.

“Maybe I’ll finish my tale later. We have a lot of work to do.”

“Now you’ve done it,” Emala said to Samuel. “You’ve hurt his feelings.”

Everyone got busy. Nate stripped to the waist and went in among the trees with his ax. Today they needed logs to use as ceiling beams. The logs had to be not only big but strong enough to support the weight of a heavy snowfall.

McNair tagged along, muttering to himself.

“Something the matter?”

“I am feeling old and grumpy.”

“Maybe you should have told them about the time you rode an elk. It’s more believable.”

“I did, consarn you. On a dare.” Shakespeare rubbed his white beard. “I was young and stupid in those days.”

“I saw another rattlesnake this morning,” Nate said.

“Imagine that. In the wilderness, no less.”

“Have you come across any since the hunt?”

Shakespeare shook his head. “I don’t make it a point to look. I’m not as fond of them as you are.”

A stand of oaks drew Nate’s interest. Several were more than thick enough. He patted a trunk. “What do you think?”

“That there isn’t enough respect in this world for those with white hair.”

“I meant the trees.”

“Oh.” Shakespeare walked around it. “Nice and straight. And oak is stronger than pine.”

“Let’s do it.”

Shakespeare nodded and chose another.

Nate settled into a rhythm, swinging smoothly and powerfully. Chips flew with each bite of his ax blade. When the oak gave a lurch and there was a loud
crack,
he yelled, “Timber!” and quickly backed away. With a tremendous boom, the giant oak fell. It took a few smaller trees with it and when it hit, raised bits of grass and dust into the air.

A few minutes later the tree Shakespeare had picked came crashing down. He walked over, his brow glistening with a sheen of sweat. “That felt good.”

“See,” Nate said. “You’re not as old as you keep saying.”

“Because I can chop down a tree?”

“You never once stopped to rest. Many men would have.”

“I have never been puny,” Shakespeare said. He gazed about them at the untamed wilds. “You can’t be and survive out here.”

“Neither puny nor careless,” Nate said.

Evelyn appeared, carrying a pitcher and two glasses. She was wearing one of her best dresses and a bonnet Nate had never laid eyes on before. He had seen her sewing something a few days ago and now he knew what. “That’s new,” he said, nodding.

“Yes,” Evelyn said absently.

Shakespeare studied it. “I’ve never seen you in a bonnet, young one. It becomes you.”

“I’m not so young anymore,” Evelyn replied in the same absent tone, “and I was hoping it would.”

“You act down in the dumps,” Shakespeare remarked.

Evelyn gave a toss of her head and smiled. “Sorry. It’s just that Dega isn’t here today.”

Nate and Shakespeare exchanged covert glances.

“Not here?” Nate said.

“No. He’s off with his pa, hunting. His sister says he wanted to come but Waku promised you he would do the hunting and Dega had to go with him.”

“It’s rough having a stomach,” Shakespeare said.

Evelyn blinked and then grinned. “You say the strangest things, do you know that?”

Nate said, “You’ll get to see Dega later probably.”

“I hope so.” Evelyn gave each of them a glass. “I brought blackberry juice. Ma made it as a surprise.”

“Daisies and nags rolled into one,” Shakespeare said.

“Excuse me?”

“Women,” Shakespeare said.

“That’s awful. Not all women nag, I am sure.”

“Girl, you’re, what, sixteen? You’ve lived long
enough to know that females will be females and males will be males and never the twain shall meet.”

Shakespeare chuckled. “Well, except under the blan—”

Nate nudged him with an elbow, hard.

“Except what?” Evelyn asked.

“Except in the heart, where it counts the most,” Shakespeare said, and rubbed his side. “If it wasn’t for love we’d likely kill each other off.”

“Love,” Evelyn said dreamily.

Nate wagged his glass. “Are you going to pour or do we do it ourselves? I’m right thirsty.”

“Sorry, Pa.”

Shakespeare waited his turn, took a long sip, and smacked his lips in satisfaction. “Delicious. Tell your ma if I wasn’t married to my personal nag and she wasn’t hitched to this lunkhead next to me, I’d dang well propose to her.”

“I’ll tell my ma no such thing,” Evelyn said. “You’re terrible.”

Shakespeare drank more juice and said, “Marriage isn’t a bed of roses, fair maiden. You’d do well to remember that.”

“But you believe in love. You just said so.”

Shakespeare smiled and said kindly, “Yes, precious. I believe in love as much as I believe in anything.”

“Me, too. I think about it a lot.”

Shakespeare took another sip and looked at a pair of finches that flew past and then at the sky and then at his moccasins and then he said, “Have anyone in particular in mind when you think about love?”

“Who? Me?”

“I wasn’t talking to Horatio, here. I already know he loves Winona. The wisest choice he ever made in
his whole life.” Shakespeare raised his glass and stared at her over the rim. “How about you?”

“I’m too young to be in love.”

“Really?”

Nate bit his lower lip to keep from laughing.

“And even if I was, I wouldn’t talk about it,” Evelyn said defensively. “Love is personal and private.”

“Do tell.”

“It’s true. When we talk about it, we spoil it.”

“I never knew that.”

“Unless it’s with the one we love. Then it’s all right to talk about it. Sort of like heart to heart.”

“I will be sure to mention that to Blue Water Woman. We have been making a spectacle of ourselves talking about our love in public.”

“You’re teasing, aren’t you?”

“Perish forbid,” Shakespeare said, and launched into a quote. “With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out, for what love can do, that dares love attempt.”

“What are you saying? That it is all right to talk about our special love with just about anybody?”

“There is talking and there is talking. But you are right, princess. There are things we talk about with those we love that we wouldn’t say to total strangers.”

“Are you teasing again?”

“Never about the shrine we hold most dear. That is, if we are talking about the same shrines.”

“I’m so confused,” Evelyn said.

Nate drained his glass and handed it to her. “Tell your mother we’ll be trimming a while. And don’t ever come into these woods again without your rifle.”

Evelyn was reaching for Shakespeare’s glass, and
stopped. “I had the pitcher and glasses to carry. Besides, I have my pistols and my knife. And I heard you chopping and knew you weren’t far.”

“Never ever,” Nate said.

Frowning, Evelyn took the glass and wheeled on her heels. “I’m not a child. I can take care of myself.”

“Blue Flower,” Nate said sternly, using her Shoshone name.

Evelyn glanced over her shoulder.

“I don’t want to have to bury you.”

She walked on without saying a word.

A gust of wind stirred the trees and farther in the forest a raven squawked.

“It has long amused me,” Shakespeare said, “that when we are young we think we know everything and when we are old and look back we realize we didn’t know much of anything. She’s growing up, Horatio. She has a mind of her own.”

“Doesn’t make it easier.”

“No, the older they get, the harder it is. But look at the bright side.”

“I shudder to ask,” Nate said.

“In a year or so you might be a grandpa.”