Venom Read online

  Emala checked on her children. Chickoy was looking under a rock. Randa was searching around some boulders.

  Samuel looked at Emala and smiled. She smiled back, but she wondered what he was up to. He hardly ever smiled at her like that. He must want something, she decided. He was always nice to her when he wanted something. Men were sneaky that way.

  Emala came to a cluster of rocks. Big rocks, middling rocks, little rocks. How they got piled that way was a mystery. She thought maybe the rising and falling of the lake might have something to do with it. Shakespeare had told her that sometimes the lake level rose when it rained real hard and that in the summer the level often dropped.

  Emala poked at the rocks with her foot. A few clattered from the pile. She poked harder and a few more clattered. No snakes, though. She went to move on, then thought maybe she should sort through the whole pile. The Kings would. They were good people, the Kings. She liked them, liked them a lot. She was grateful as grateful could be for them helping her family.

  Emala shifted the rifle to her elbow and bent down. It was hard, bending. She was big across the hips and more plump than most women. She liked that word, “plump.” She didn’t like the word “fat.” She had been plump ever since she could remember. “Plump as a peach,” her mother would say. Or “Plump as a baked turkey.” Emala liked being compared to a peach, but she wasn’t so pleased about being compared to a turkey.

  Something shot at her from the rocks.

  Rearing back, Emala opened her mouth to scream. But it was only a bug. A brown beetle that scuttled swiftly away.

  “Lordy,” Emala breathed. Her heart was thumping. If it had been a snake she might have fainted. “I’m not cut out for this.” She moved on. She had a job to do and she always did a job, any job, to the best of her ability. Whether she liked the job or not.

  The others had gone farther than she had. She walked faster, careful not to misstep. She’d broke her leg as a girl and been wary ever since. Plump ladies didn’t get around so good with broke legs.

  Emala saw a flat rock about as big around as a cook pot. It didn’t look very heavy, but when she pushed it with her shoe it wouldn’t budge. Grunting from the effort, she bent and slipped her fingers under the edge and lifted. The rock wouldn’t rise. That was good, she thought. There couldn’t be a snake under there if it was wedged fast like that. She went to walk on and stopped. She wasn’t doing the job right if she didn’t look under it.

  Emala set down her rifle. She gripped the edge with both hands and strained. The rock rose a little but not enough to see under. She strained again. She could feel drops of sweat trickling down her brow and down her arms. She wasn’t fond of sweat. When it got in her eyes it stung.

  “What are you doin’, woman?”

  Samuel was there. Chickory and Randa were well along the shore, searching.

  “What does it look like I’m doin’?” Emala retorted. “I am lookin’ for snakes.”

  “If you went any slower you would be a turtle.” Samuel bent and lifted the flat rock with one hand. There was nothing under it but dirt.

  “I can’t help it if I’m not as fast or as strong as you.”

  “We can’t be at this all day.” Samuel straightened. “The rest of us will be done and you’ll still be ploddin’ along.”

  “I do not plod,” Emala said.

  Samuel shrugged and made toward the tree line. “Try to go faster. Give a holler if you need help.”

  As if Emala would. It made her blood boil, him treating her this way. Like she was next to worthless. She never heard him complain when she slaved over a hot stove to put food in his belly, or at night when she let him take what she liked to call his “liberties.”

  It was hard being a woman. Men didn’t realize how hard. They didn’t cook and sew and clean and give birth to babies. They didn’t swell up and feel new life inside of them and go through hours or days of pain—she doubted a man could stand it. Women were tougher. That’s why God let them have babies and not men. When it came to pain men were babies.

  Emala grinned at the notion. Her grin became a chuckle and her chuckle a belly laugh.

  “You all right over there?” Samuel called.

  “Right fine,” Emala replied between laughs. Just because she was laughing, he thought something was the matter. Times like this, she wondered what the good Lord had in mind when he made men. Maybe he made them for women to laugh at. That made her laugh harder.

  “What are you laughing at?” Samuel shouted.

  “Silly things,” Emala said.

  Samuel muttered something and resumed searching for snakes.

  Emala dabbed at her eyes and hefted her rifle and took a few deep breaths. “Lordy,” she said in amusement. There were days when she amazed herself at how humorous she could be. She did so like to laugh. Her ma used to say it came natural to plump ladies, that skinny ladies were much too serious. Which always made Emala glad she was plump.

  Grinning, Emala spied Zach and Louisa King way off on the north shore. She wondered if they were having as much fun as she was.

  Chapter Five

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” Zach said for the tenth time since the hunt started.

  “I’m with child,” Louisa King replied. “I’m not helpless.” She was small of frame with sandy hair she liked to crop short and eyes the same color as the lake. Usually she favored buckskins, but this past week she had taken an old brown homespun dress out of her trunk and was wearing that.

  “Still, it’s rattlers,” Zach said. He was worried sick she’d be bitten; he could lose her and the baby both.

  “I am not scared of snakes.”

  “That’s your problem,” Zach complained. “You’re not much scared of anything.”

  “I was scared that time the army took you into custody and you were put on trial. I was scared I’d lose you.”

  “I’m still here,” Zach said.

  Lou sighed and turned and stared across the bright blue of the sunlit lake at the virgin valley beyond. She loved it here. Initially she had balked at moving from their old cabin in the foothills, but the move had turned out to be the smartest thing she ever did, next to marrying Zach. She liked the colors. She liked how the light green of the grass merged into the slightly darker green of the deciduous trees, the oaks and cottonwoods and willows, and how they, in turn, merged higher up into the even darker greens of the spruce and pine. Here and there stands of aspen were scattered. At this time of the year their leaves were a pale green, but in a few months they would flame with red and orange and yellow, the precursor of fall. Above the trees were high cliffs and jagged ramparts and crests crowned with snow.

  A bald eagle soared over the valley on outstretched pinions, its predatory gaze on the ground. Several buzzards wheeled in concentric circles over woods to the east. In the water a streak of silver flashed clear and splashed down again.

  “I hope we live here forever,” Lou said.

  “Could be we won’t. Could be it will get as crowded here at it did along the front range.”

  “Crowded?” Lou teased. “We had five neighbors stretched out over twenty-five miles.”

  “For the Rockies that’s crowded.”

  “You and your pa,” Lou said, and laughed.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Only that you and your father love the wilderness. You can’t stand to be hemmed in. It’s a wonder you’re not upset about the new people who have joined us. I don’t mean just the Worths. I mean Waku and his family.”

  Zach hadn’t been happy about it. His father tended to be too nice and offered sanctuary to anyone who needed it. If it had been him, he’d have told them to find a spot elsewhere.

  Lou watched a pair of geese paddle majestically by. She liked how they held their heads high and moved along the water without hardly any movement of their bodies. “I think if I’d been born an animal I’d like it to have been a goose.” She’d heard tell that geese mated for life. Feathere
d romantics, was what they were.

  “That’s plain silly.” Zach never ceased to be amazed at the things that came out of her mouth.

  “We should keep looking,” Lou suggested. “We have a lot of shore to cover yet.”

  “I can do it alone,” Zach tried again.

  “If you were a horse you would have blinders on.”

  “Dang it, woman.”

  “I love it when you sweet-talk me.”

  Zach gave up. There was no reasoning with her at times. She got something into her pretty head and nothing could change it. And she did have a pretty head. As well as a pretty face and a pretty body and the prettiest smile of any female ever born. “Just be careful, all right?”

  “Dang it,” Lou imitated him. “Here I was hoping to give the first rattler we find a big hug.”

  “Ornery wench.”

  “Wench?” Lou repeated. “Did you just call me a wench? You’ve been hanging around Shakespeare too long.”

  Zach grinned.

  Lou beckoned to the geese and said, “Quick! Come here and take a look! He has honest-to-God teeth!”

  Zach laughed, and felt his worry lessen. She had that effect on him. She always seemed to know just what to do to make him feel good. “Don’t tell anyone, but I love you.”

  “Oh my. Does this mean you have designs on me?” Lou grinned and patted her belly. “Oh. Wait. You already did have designs.”

  “You’re hopeless,” Zach said, and commenced to prowl among a jumble of rocks and boulders.

  Louisa was pleased with herself. It took some doing to get him to not take things so seriously. Sure, he was serious by nature, but he had a wonderful sense of humor if he would only let it out more.

  Lou came to a group of small boulders and carefully picked her way among them. She didn’t dare slip. A fall might cause her to lose the baby. She smiled in anticipation. Her very own son or daughter. She hoped it was a girl, but Zach hoped it was a boy. She wished there were some way to tell. She had asked Winona and Winona said that her people believed that if a woman was carrying the baby high, it was likely to be a girl, and if she was carrying the baby low, it was likely to be a boy.

  Lou looked down at herself. She had barely begun to show. It was much too soon to tell if she would carry high or low. Another few months maybe. She stepped around a knee-high boulder and over an ankle-high slab of rock and was within a few feet of the water’s edge. She crouched and dipped her hand in and touched her wet hand to her neck and her forehead.

  “What are you doing?” Zach asked from off a ways.

  “Cooling off.”

  “Be careful you don’t fall in.”

  Louisa looked at him to see if he was serious, and he was. As if by being pregnant she must be clumsy. A sharp retort was on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it. She dipped her hand in again and this time took a sip. Across the lake to the south was Shakespeare’s cabin, figures moving near it.

  Lou stood and wiped her right hand on her dress. With her rifle in her left hand she turned to catch up to Zach. She had to pass a couple of boulders that made her think of giant eggs. She was almost around them when a rattlesnake reared in a patch of shadow.

  “Oh God,” she blurted.

  The snake was big and thick and its eyes seemed to bore into her with wicked intent. Its tail began to buzz.

  Lou almost bolted, but the rattler was too close. She thought of the baby, and of how sick a bite would make her even if she didn’t die. All that poison, it might harm the baby, might cause her to lose it. So she stood still, goose bumps breaking out all over.

  The hideous head swayed in her direction.

  Lou prayed that by not moving she wouldn’t provoke it. She wanted to look to see if Zach had noticed, but she was afraid to even move her eyes. The snake might strike.

  The buzz of its tail grew louder. For some reason the snake was becoming more agitated.

  What could she do? She could try to shoot it, but it was bound to bite her before she got off a shot. She had heard they were lightning quick. And besides, she wasn’t Zach. She couldn’t shoot without aiming. In the time it would take her to take aim the snake could bite her three or four times.

  All Lou could do was stand there and hope. She began to sweat. She hated when that happened. Sweat made her feel sticky, and she wasn’t fond of how she smelled. Please, she inwardly prayed, just go away and leave me be. Their eyes met, or so it appeared to her, and a chill rippled through her clear to her toes. There was something awful, something alien about those eyes.

  In her ears the buzzing rose to a crescendo. Although “buzzing” didn’t quite fit. It was more like the rattle of seeds in a dry gourd. Its tail was sticking up in the air and vibrating fiercely.

  Any moment now.

  Lou resigned herself. It was going to strike. She must be ready and try to jump out of the way. She knew she would still get bitten but she had to try. She also knew that if she slipped and fell on the boulders, she might harm the new life taking form inside her.

  The rattler’s thick body was in an S, the head at the top of the S with the mouth parting.

  This was it. Lou tensed and was on the verge of springing when the stock of a rifle flashed out of nowhere and struck the snake on the head with such force the reptile was flung against a boulder. It immediately started to coil and rear, but a moccasin-clad foot stomped on it just below the head, and the next thing, Zach bent and grabbed hold of the tail and began to swing the snake as if it were a rope. With each swing he smashed it against a boulder, again and again and again, smashing and smashing.

  “Zach,” Lou said.

  Zach didn’t hear her. He was making small animal sounds deep in his throat, snarls and growls as if he were a wolverine gone berserk. He swung and smashed and smashed some more so that the snake was turning to pulp.

  “Zach?”

  The snake was limp and had to be lifeless, but Zach suddenly slammed it down one more time and let go and drew his tomahawk. With a swift blow he separated the head from the body and then went on swinging, chopping the body to bits and pieces.

  “Zach,” Lou said, and put her hand on his arm.

  Zach stopped chopping. He looked at her, his eyes wild with savagery and his lips curled back so that he looked as if he was about to bite her. His face was flushed with fury and he was breathing hard.

  “I think it’s dead.”

  Zach glanced down. He slowly straightened. The savagery faded from his eyes and he slowly became his usual self. He stared at the gore on his tomahawk. “I think you’re right.”

  “I’ll say one thing for you. When you kill a snake, you kill a snake.”

  “It was going to bite you,” Zach said quietly.

  “I know.”

  “I couldn’t let it. I’ll never let anything or anyone harm you so long as I’m breathing.”

  “No need to justify what you did.” Lou gently squeezed his arm. “You did what you had to. You always do what you have to.”

  “That’s what a man does,” Zach said, and his voice was husky and almost hoarse.

  “You do it well.”

  Zach coughed again, and set down his tomahawk and took her into his arms. “God,” he said. “I almost lost you.”

  Lou snuggled against him. She was still holding her rifle and it was pressed between them and gouging her, but she didn’t want to break the hug to set it down. She snuggled and kissed him on the neck, and said, “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  “I know I can always count on you.”

  “It was ready to strike. If I’d come a second later…” Zach stopped.

  “It’s over.”

  “From this day on I’m killing every damn rattler I see.”

  “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

  “You might have died.”

  “You can’t blame all snakes over this one. Another might have crawled off.”

  “I want you and the baby safe. So I mean it. Every
rattler from now on is dead.”

  Lou snuggled and kissed his neck. “That’s another thing I like about you. You don’t do things in half measure.”

  “We should show it to my pa.”

  “Which piece?”

  Zach started to laugh and caught himself. Lou started, and didn’t stop. She let herself go. It felt good to laugh and feel the tension seep from her and leave her restored and happy. “I’m all right now.”

  “I lost control again,” Zach said.

  “You had cause.”

  “I told myself I would never lose control again, and I did.”

  “The important thing is that the snake is dead. Now we can get on with the hunt.”

  Zach let go of her and stepped back. “I’ll go on with the hunt. You’re going back to the cabin.”

  “We’ve been all through that. I’m not helpless. I’m taking part.”

  “No,” Zach said firmly. “You’re not.”

  Lou went to say that she was a grown woman and could do as she pleased, and looked into his eyes. “Oh,” she said. “I guess I’m not.”

  Zach stepped to the lake and dipped the tomahawk in the water, swishing it until the gore was off, and wiped the tomahawk dry on his pants. Tucking it under his belt, he retrieved his rifle and held out his hand to her. “I’m sorry, but we can’t risk the baby.”

  “No, we can’t,” Lou agreed.

  “I’m sorry I lost control, too.”

  “Enough about that.”

  “I worry that one day I’ll lose control and bring more trouble down on our heads, like I did with the army that time.”

  “Stop fretting. You were just being you. It’s not the most important thing, anyway.”

  “What is?”

  Lou turned to him. “Our love.”

  Chapter Six

  “I think a rattlesnake just crawled up my leg,” Shakespeare McNair remarked.

  Nate was looking under a rock. “You’re not half as humorous as you think you are.” They had scoured most of the south shore and not come across a snake of any kind. He and McNair were near the grass, Winona and Blue Water Woman were over by the lake. They had been hunting for an hour now and would soon be at the east end.