“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.”
Chapter Three
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.”