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 bit 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.
Chickory gazed over his shoulder at a high mountain with a block of white at the top. A glacier, it was called. Shakespeare McNair had told him about it, said it was made all of ice and never melted. Claimed, too, that the Worths should stay away from up there, that it was slippery and covered with cracks that once a person fell in, they never got out. McNair also said that now and then he and his wife and the Kings heard strange roars and howls from some sort of creature. That was what McNair called it: a creature. Not an animal. It sounded like another of McNair’s tall tales to Chickory.