Venom (6 page)

The chickens needed to be shooed in at dusk. Bobcats and foxes and coyotes and wolves loved to gorge on chicken flesh.

It was Evelyn’s job. Or, as she preferred to think of it, her chore. She didn’t much like chickens. When they were fresh out of the egg they were adorable. They chirped sweetly and looked so cuddly she always wanted to pick them up. But as they aged they lost their cuteness and would often as not peck anyone who tried to handle them.

When her pa first got them there were ten, but now there were eighteen, counting the rooster. Evelyn liked him, liked how he strutted around with his chest puffed out and put on displays for the hens. She didn’t like how he crowed each morning at the crack of day and woke her. She would as soon sleep in.

On this particular evening, most of the sun had been devoured by the maw of hungry night. Evelyn had herded eleven of the chickens inside the coop but couldn’t find the rest. She went toward the lake and spied five close to the water. One was a big hen she called Matilda. Matilda thought she was a rooster. She had her own little band that followed her everywhere and did whatever Matilda did.

“There you are,” Evelyn said as she slowly circled to get behind them so they couldn’t run off. They clucked and Matilda dug at the dirt and flapped her
wings. “It’s time for bed.” Evelyn waved her arms. “Get going.”

Matilda in the lead, they moved toward the coop. They took their time, as they always did, in no rush to be locked in.

Evelyn stamped her foot in irritation. “Faster, darn you. I am meeting Dega later and have things to do.” A secret meeting, as they had been doing for a while now. She would tell her folks she was going to bed and slip out her window and spend an hour or so with him and slip back in again with her parents none the wiser.

Evelyn never imagined there would come a day when she would do anything so brazen behind their backs. She loved and respected them. She truly did. But she doubted they’d approve and might even try to stop her, and she couldn’t have that. Dega meant too much to her. The thought made her cheeks grow warm. She hadn’t been honest with Shakespeare. She wasn’t too young to be in love. She had, in fact, been in love for some time and not realized it until recently. Peculiar how the heart worked, she reflected. Even more peculiar that the mind sometimes denied what the heart was feeling. She had denied hers until her feelings for Dega washed over her in a tidal wave of desire.

A short ramp led to the floor of the coop, which was raised off the ground about a foot. Matilda led her group up it and flapped her wings again before entering and gave Evelyn a look that suggested were it up to Matilda she would spend her nights outside, thank you very much.

Evelyn shut the small door but didn’t latch it. Not yet. There were two chickens unaccounted for. It
didn’t help that their feathers were reddish brown. It made them hard to see in the murky twilight.

Evelyn went around the cabin to the corral, where the chickens liked to bathe in the dust, but the missing chickens weren’t there. She walked to the rear of the cabin, where the chickens liked to peck at the tiny stones, but the missing pair weren’t there either. She moved to the other side. Still no chickens.

Puzzled, Evelyn scanned the lakeshore and the tree line. Usually they didn’t wander far. Some instinct kept them close.

Evelyn knew which chickens were missing, two of the smallest. They had hatched at the same time and always went everywhere together. Sometimes they were with the rooster and sometimes with Matilda, and other times they wandered by themselves. She roved the shore for fifty yards and retraced her steps and went the same distance in the other direction. She crossed to the woods and moved along the border for a considerable distance.

“Where did you get to, consarn it?” Evelyn asked the empty air. She had other chores to do and she wanted to wash up before she pretended to turn in and went out her window to be with Dega. The thought of him, of his wonderful eyes and his handsome face, sent a tingle down her spine.
Who would have thought,
she asked herself,
that I would ever feel this way?
When she was younger she had known beyond any shadow of doubt that she was never going to fall in love and never going to marry. She had felt no need for a man and never had a hankering to have children and a family. Yet here she was, in love, and the notion of a family of her own pleased her mightily.

“Life,” Evelyn said, and grinned. She sure had
learned a lot about herself in the past several months. It was a mild shock to learn she was so changeable. She thought she knew herself inside and out, but it turned out she didn’t know herself at all. How that could be was a mystery. If people didn’t know themselves, how could they know anyone else?

Evelyn shook her head. She was tired of thinking about it. She returned to the cabin and stood near the corral tapping her foot in impatience. The two chickens had to be somewhere. She wondered if maybe they were already in the coop.

The world around her was gray fading to black as Evelyn knelt and opened the door and peered in. She couldn’t make out much, but she could smell the chickens and the straw and droppings. She lowered the door and rose. “They have to be in there,” she said to herself. But if she were wrong and the chickens came back later and her parents found out, she would be in hot water.

“Darned birds,” Evelyn groused. She began another circle of the cabin. To the west, well past the coop and the garden, was a pile of small boulders. Her father had put them there when he cleared the ground for their cabin. She moved toward them. Occasionally the chickens strayed that way. The rooster liked to climb on top and crow and gaze out over his domain.

Evelyn walked within a few feet and saw no sign of them and was about to turn when her eye was caught by something lying in the dirt. “No,” she said, and dashed over. It was one of the missing chickens, dead. She’d never much cared to touch dead things, so she nudged it with her toe. It was stiff; it had been dead a while. She bent and sought sign of why it died. There were no bites or claw marks as if a
predator got at it. But then, a meat-eater wouldn’t let it go to waste but would carry it off to feed on.

Evelyn went around the pile. She hadn’t taken half a dozen steps when she came on the second chicken. One look at it on its back with its legs sticking out was enough. She nudged it anyway, but life had long since fled.

“What killed them?” Evelyn asked aloud. Bending, she scrunched her mouth in loathing, gripped a leg, and lifted. She would take the chicken back to her pa and let him figure it out. She turned to go and almost at her elbow something moved among the boulders. She looked, and turned to ice.

A thick, sinewy shape had reared. A forked tongue flicked and reptilian eyes regarded her with sinister intensity.

Evelyn fought down fear. The tongue had nearly brushed her arm when it licked out. She didn’t dare move, didn’t dare do anything that might incite it to bite.

The snake rose higher and its tail buzzed.

Sweat oozed from Evelyn’s every pore. Of all God’s creatures, to her rattlesnakes were some of the scariest.

The rattler was turning its head from side to side as if it were studying her and couldn’t make up its mind what she was.

A drop of sweat trickled down Evelyn’s nose onto her upper lip. She considered throwing the chicken at the snake to distract it and then running, and decided not to try. Better that she wait for it to lose interest and crawl off.

The snake went on staring.

Evelyn’s whole body was rigid with anxiety. She
felt more drops trickle down. One got into her left eye and stung like the dickens. She resisted an impulse to blink.

From the cabin came a shout; her pa, calling her name.

Evelyn yearned to reply. She yearned to tell him of her peril and have him rush to help. He would shoot it. He was an incredible shot. She once saw him shoot the head off a grouse in flight. He shot the head so the body would be in one piece when her mother served it.

“Evelyn? Where are you?”

Evelyn didn’t answer. Everyone claimed that if you stood as still as could be, a snake wouldn’t bite. She hoped it was true. Another drop missed her right eye and dribbled onto her cheek.

The rattler was still glaring at her. It didn’t make a sound except for the buzzing.

Evelyn swallowed and came to the conclusion she must do something. She couldn’t stand there forever. Sooner or later she would involuntarily flinch or twitch.

“Evelyn? Answer me.”

Her pa was closer. Evelyn started to turn her head but caught herself. Willpower was called for. Gobs and gobs of willpower. She wasn’t like her brother, Zach, who could latch on to things with an intensity that was frightening, or even like her pa who when he concentrated on something devoted his whole will to it. But she was strong-minded and when she put her mind to a purpose she usually did what she set out to do.

“Evelyn? If you can hear me, give a shout.”

Oh, that Evelyn could. She watched the snake,
hoping against hope it would slither down into the boulders. But it didn’t. It stared and rattled, stared and rattled.

“Evelyn!”

Her father was so close that Evelyn heard his footsteps. She went to whisper but her vocal cords were frozen. All that came out was a low bleat.

“Evelyn?”

Evelyn sensed he was so near she could reach out and touch him. He had to have spotted the snake, even as dark as it had become.

“When I tell you, drop the chicken and leave the rest to me. Do nothing but let go of the chicken. Don’t move or yell. Just let it drop. Blink once if you are ready.”

Evelyn’s whole body broke out in goose bumps. She blinked.

“I’ll count to three. On three let go.”

The strain was getting to Evelyn. Her legs started to shake. The weight of the chicken seemed to grow tenfold.

“One.”

Evelyn swallowed. The rattlesnake hadn’t moved, hadn’t done a thing when her father spoke, as if it were ignoring him and concentrating solely on her.

“Two.”

Evelyn’s nerves jangled. She trusted her pa more than anyone, trusted him to do whatever it took, but she was still scared.

“Three.”

Evelyn let go. Instantly, the snake struck, biting at the chicken as it fell. Simultaneously, iron hands closed on Evelyn and she was swept away from the boulders as if she were weightless and deposited as gently as a feather on the balls of her feet. It
happened so swiftly she had no time to react. Her father released her and she glimpsed a streak of…something…and heard a sound like metal on rock. The object streaked again and she recognized it; his tomahawk. “Careful,” she said, worried the snake might bite him.

Nate grunted and straightened. In his right hand was the tomahawk. In his left was about six inches of rattlesnake, including its head. The mouth opened and closed and went on opening and closing even though most of the body was missing. “You’re safe.”

“Oh, Pa.” Evelyn threw herself at him and hugged him. “Thank goodness you came along when you did.”

“I wondered what was keeping you,” Nate said, sounding as if he had come down with a cold.

“Another chicken is dead besides that one,” Evelyn informed him. “I think maybe the rattler bit them both.”

“Another damn rattlesnake,” Nate said.

Evelyn rarely heard him swear. A lot of men, and women, too, cussed as if their lives depended on it, but not her father or her mother or her uncle Shakespeare either. She’d asked her father once why he didn’t and he said that he never got into the habit. She’d asked Shakespeare, too, and he had chuckled in that merry way he had and said that cussing was for those who “had not so much brains as earwax.”

“I have half a mind to call another hunt. I should send you to fetch your brother and your uncle and make plans for tomorrow.”

Evelyn’s insides churned. She wouldn’t get to see Dega and she dearly wanted to. “Is that really necessary?”

“You were nearly bit.”

“But I wasn’t. And the last hunt didn’t turn up many. Another hunt won’t either.”

“They have to be coming from somewhere,” Nate said. “If we can find their den we can put an end to them.”

Evelyn thought fast. “It could be anywhere. You could spend a month of Sundays looking and still not find it.”

“I suppose.”

“And there are the Worths to think of. They’re looking forward to their new cabin. Another delay might upset them. Emala, especially. She misses having a home. She told me so, herself. She misses it so much, she was practically in tears over it.”

“They have been through a lot,” Nate said.

“Then why not just tell everyone about the snake tomorrow and warn them to be on their guard?” Evelyn suggested. “That should do.”

Nate looked at the snake’s head and scowled and threw it at the pile of boulders. “I am so sick of rattlesnakes. But I reckon you’re right. I don’t need to be a laughingstock twice in one month.”

“No one laughed at you, Pa.”

“Your uncle Shakespeare did. He said that if worry was gold I’d be covered in yellow warts.”

Evelyn laughed.

“It’s too bad a rattler hasn’t bitten him.”

“Oh, Pa.”

The cabin began to take shape.

All the logs were trimmed and cut. Those for the front and the back walls were fourteen feet long; those for the sides, twelve feet. All the notches were a foot from each end. Since the logs weren’t the same diameter, Nate and Shakespeare alternated those with slightly thicker ends. That way the walls were even.

Lifting the heavy logs went smoothly until the walls were about chest high. Then they had to resort to skids; smaller logs were braced against each wall, and the cabin logs were rolled up into position. When the walls were head high, they used ropes and the skids.

A fireplace was a necessity. Without it, the Worths would be hard-pressed to survive the bitterly harsh mountain winters. Accordingly, Nate cut slits in one of the upper logs on the wall where the fireplace would go so that when the cabin was done they could insert a saw and make an opening for the fireplace stones.

The roof logs were the longest of all, to allow for an overhang. Getting them up took coordinated effort, and once they were high enough they had to be carefully slid into place. It was a slow process, which was why the roof alone took four days to complete.

Nate and Shakespeare had also left slits in the walls for the door and the window. They cut the door opening down to the ground, and Emala mentioned that she would like it a bit wider.

“May I ask why?” Nate asked.

Emala put her hands on her wide hips and answered, “So I don’t get stuck. I’d rather not have to go in and out of my own house sideways.”

“I don’t blame you, madam,” Shakespeare said.

“It is a trial being plump,” Emala informed them.

Shakespeare grinned and gave a courtly bow and winked. “But you jiggle so nicely.”

“Why, Mr. McNair!” Emala exclaimed, and laughed heartily.

They made the window a foot and a half across, and Emala remarked that she would like it wider, too.

“I don’t advise that,” Nate said.

“I am a big woman,” Emala responded. “I’d like to have a window that all of me can stand in front of.”

“The wider it is, the more cold air it will let in,” Nate warned her. “Curtains and shutters won’t help much when it’s cold enough to freeze your breath.”

“I hope to get glass like Winona and you have.”

“Glass lets in the cold, too. Didn’t you notice that our windows are the same size as the windows I am making you?”

Emala reluctantly settled for a small window.

Every day they stopped work at noon to eat and rest. The women cooked food, coffee and tea were brewed, and everyone sat around talking and joking and having a friendly time.

It was during a noon break one day that Randa
got up and strolled off with her hands clasped behind her slender back, admiring the splendid scenery. She loved the sweep of the high mountains. She loved the colors of the vegetation that covered the valley floor. She loved the lake with all the waterfowl cavorting about. In short, she loved everything about their new home.

Randa’s ambling brought her to the gully. She was standing watching a bald eagle soar high in the sky when Zach King came out of the trees with his rifle over his shoulder, carrying a rabbit. She remembered him going off earlier and had wondered where he got to. “More food for the pot?” She hadn’t heard a shot.

Zach nodded.

Randa had noticed he didn’t talk much. He wasn’t always gabbing like Chickory did. She liked that. She liked, too, how handsome he was. Not that she would ever let him know, him being married and all. “How is Louisa doin’?”

Zach stopped. “Fine,” he said. “She gets a little sick in the mornings, but she is eating like a horse.”

Randa grinned and said, “You shouldn’t ought to talk about your missus that way.”

“It’s the truth,” Zach said. “I can barely keep enough food in the pantry, she eats so much.”

“I hear ladies do that,” Randa admitted.

Zach stared at her waist.

“Is somethin’ the matter?” Randa asked, uncomfortable under his gaze. “Why are you lookin’ at me like that?”

“Where are your weapons?”

“Pardon?”

“You don’t even have a knife.”

“I do so have one, but I took it off to work,” Randa told him.

“No gun?”

“Not yet. My pa says he’s fixin’ to get me one just as soon as he can afford to,” Randa revealed.

“Come over to our cabin later,” Zach said. “I have a spare pistol you can have.”

“I couldn’t.” Randa’s mother had warned her about accepting gifts even from people she knew and liked.

“I wasn’t asking. You can’t traipse around out here unarmed, woman. You’re asking to be torn to bits or have your throat slit.”

Randa felt an odd sort of tingle when he called her “woman.” “It can’t be as bad as all that.”

“It’s worse.” Zach came closer. “Hasn’t my pa or Shakespeare talked to you? Don’t be fooled. It’s peaceful at the moment, but the peace never lasts. As surely as you’re standing there, sooner or later something or someone will try to kill you.”

“Happens to you a lot, does it?” Randa teased.

A shadow seemed to pass over Zach’s face. “Sometimes it seems as if it happens every time I turn around.”

Randa made bold to ask, “My pa says you’ve killed a lot of folks. Is that true? Are you a killer?”

“It’s not anything I like to talk about.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Randa said quickly, and walked away along the gully rim, intending to go around and into the woods. To her surprise, Zach fell into step beside her.

“Where are you going?”

“Just walkin’.”

“I’ll go with you. You shouldn’t go anywhere unarmed.”

“There’s really no need,” Randa said. “Everyone is
right over yonder. All I need to do is yell and they’ll come on the run.”

“By the time they got here a bear could rip your head off or tear open your belly.”

“You sure think of nice things.”

“I think of real things.”

Randa puckered her mouth in displeasure. “You’re only sayin’ that to scare me.”

“No, I’m saying it because it’s true.” Zach touched her arm and she stopped. “Listen to me, Randa, and listen good. If not for your sake then for your family’s.” He gestured, encompassing the entire valley. “Life here isn’t like what you are used to. This isn’t like back East. You can’t take it for granted that you’ll get through the day without something or someone trying to make worm food of you. Always stay alert. Every minute. Every second. The time you don’t is the time you die.”

Randa still didn’t think it could be as bad as he was saying, but she kept her peace. “I’m grateful for the advice.”

Zach drew his Bowie and held it so the blade glistened in the sun. “Out here life is like this knife.”

“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?