Venom

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.”

“He tends to be forgetful,” Shakespeare said. “Infants often are.”

Winona actually giggled.

“I am right here,” Nate said.

“The snakes?” Winona said to McNair.

“You’re familiar with the Bible? I know Horatio has a copy in his little library—”

“Little?” Nate said.

“I am familiar with it,” Winona responded. “I have not read it through as he has, but he has read much of it to me and I have read a little on my own. I speak the white tongue much better than I read or write it.”

“You are a marvel,” Shakespeare said. “But back to the Bible. In it are all sorts of sayings about what we should and shouldn’t do. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not kill. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Be perfect as thy Father in heaven is perfect.”

“Does it mention snakes?”

“There’s the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the one who tricks Eve into taking a bite of the forbidden fruit. Some folks say that wasn’t a serpent at all but Satan.”

“Nate has told me about him. Satan is the one whites say brings much evil into the world.”

“Has he told you about the part where people who believe in the Almighty can handle snakes?”

“I do not remember him ever saying anything about that, no.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Shakespeare said to Nate.

Winona turned. “I do not understand, husband. What kind of snakes does the Bible say they can pick up?”

“It’s in one of the four Gospels,” Nate explained. “Toward the end of Mark. It says that those who believe will be able to cast out devils and speak in new tongues and pick up serpents.”

When he didn’t go on Winona said, “That is all? Serpents? Does it say poisonous serpents?”

“No.”

“Does it say rattlesnakes or some other kind of snake that can kill when it bites?”

“No and no.”

“It just says serpents? But isn’t the word ‘serpent’ another word for ‘snake.’”

“Yes and yes.”

“I still do not understand,” Winona admitted.

“Some whites think it means poisonous snakes,” Nate elaborated. “Maybe because the next part says that those who believe can drink any deadly thing and it won’t harm them.”

“Are you saying that some whites like to drink snake venom?”

Shakespeare chortled. “Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t put it past a few lunkheads to try. But there are folks who think Mark is talking about poisonous snakes. So when they worship, they pick up rattlesnakes and copperheads and the like and handle them to show they have true faith.”

“Please do not take this the wrong way,” Winona said, “but whites are very strange.”

“I know that better than anyone,” Blue Water Woman said. “I live with a crazy white.”

“Here now,” Shakespeare said. “What did I do to deserve that? I’m as ordinary as butter.”

Blue Water Woman looked at Nate. “Do you spend your whole day quoting a writer who died more winters ago than anyone can remember?”

“I do not,” Nate said. “I think that would be silly.”

Shakespeare turned red in the face.

“And you?” Blue Water Woman said to Samuel. “Do you go around quoting a dead man all day?”

“Heck no, ma’am,” Samuel said. “To be honest, I can’t read worth a lick. I couldn’t quote one if I wanted to.”

Blue Water Woman smiled at McNair. “I have made my point.”

“How the blazes did we get on this subject?” Shakespeare complained.

Emala said, “I thought we were talkin’ snakes.”

The whole while, Nate had been prying at the head. He finally got it off and threw it away and stood. “I propose we organize a snake hunt. Shakespeare has lost a horse and I nearly got bit and my daughter nearly stepped on one, all since we got back.”

“What about them?” Shakespeare asked with a nod at the Worths. “Weren’t you fixing to raise a cabin?”

“Samuel and his family can stay with us,” Nate said. “Tomorrow we hunt. The day after we’ll start on their new home.” He turned to the Worths. “That is, if you two don’t mind?”

Emala took Samuel’s big arm in hers. “Mr. King, we were talkin’ about you last night and Samuel, he said you don’t know how we feel about you, and now I see he’s right. You surely don’t.”

“Feel how?”

It was Samuel who answered. “Do you know what it’s like to be a slave?” He didn’t wait for Nate to answer. “Of course you don’t. You’re white. But I was born a slave. Emala and me, both. We were told how to behave and where to live and what work we were to do. Our masters—that’s what they called themselves and that’s what we were to call them—our masters lorded it over us. We hardly had any say. I hated it. I hated it so much I had a powerful ache deep in me that wouldn’t go away.”

Nate listened with interest. He had known the Worths for a few months now, and this was the first time Samuel had gone into detail about their old life.

“I hated bein’ made to do work I didn’t want to do. I hated bein’ made to live in a shack barely big enough for two people let alone four. I hated that I had to do what our masters said or I’d be whipped.”

“How terrible,” Winona interjected.

“You don’t know the half of it, Mrs. King,” Samuel said sadly. “But my point is this. I wanted out. I wanted a new life. I wanted to be a free man, to do as I please when I please. I wanted it with all I am. But I never became a runner. I wasn’t sure we could survive.”

“You’ve done fine if you ask me,” Nate said.

“We’ve done fine thanks to you. You befriended us. You helped us against the slave hunters. You brought us across the prairie to the mountains. You said we could come live in your valley if we wanted and have a place of our own.”

“You saved us,” Emala said.

Nate didn’t quite know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

“We owe you,” Samuel said. “We owe you more than we can ever repay. So you want to wait a day to start our cabin? We don’t mind. Hell, wait a month if you have to.”

“What have I told you about swearin’?” Emala said.

“Not now, woman.”

Nate said, “You don’t owe me anything. I did the same for you as I’d do for anyone.”

“That’s another thing,” Samuel said. “You look at us, you don’t see the color of our skin.”

“You don’t know how rare that is,” Emala said. “You don’t know how special that makes you.”

“I’m just me,” Nate said.

“A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy,” Shakespeare quoted. “He hath borne me on his back a thousand times.”

“Enough about me,” Nate said. “We have a problem and it has to be dealt with. Tomorrow we hunt snakes.”