“Is it normal to have to make worm food of as many people as I have and get a reputation as a killer?”
“Hold on,” Nate said. “When a hostile is out to count coup on you or a white man is out to slit your throat because he doesn’t like that you are half-and-half, you have to defend yourself.”
“I don’t feel guilty over any of that. I’m just saying I might not be fit to be a good father. Not like you. For long as I can remember, whenever I needed you, there you were. Always ready to help. Just as you’re trying to help me now.”
“You’re my son,” Nate said.
“I don’t know as I have it in me to do the same with mine.”
“We never do until we’re put to the test. I didn’t know when I married your mother that I’d be a good father. Best I can recall, I was as scared as you. I thought I would mess up. I thought she was crazy to think I wouldn’t. But she was right, as she nearly always is.”
“Ma is smart, that’s for sure.”
“The secret is to take it one day at a time. Do the best you can each of those days and let the rest take care of themselves.”
Zach frowned. “I’ll try. But I wish I had your confidence.”
“You do. You just don’t know it yet.” Nate put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Is that all that’s bothering you?”
“It’s enough. But no. There’s more. There’s the other big thing.”
“I’m listening.”
“The blood thing.”
“Oh. That.”
“All my life I have had to put up with people hating me because I’m a breed. Whites hate breeds because we’re part Indian and a lot of Indians hate breeds because we’re half white.”
“There is a lot of stupid in this world,” Nate said.
“There’s more stupid than smart,” Zach said. “Look at what it did to me. It got so I’d hanker to shoot anyone who so much as looked at me crosswise. I got to hate the haters as much as they hated me.”
“You have remarkable restraint. There’s a good chunk of the population still breathing who shouldn’t be.”
Zach chuckled. “Sometimes you sound like Uncle Shakespeare.”
“That’s scary.”
“Seriously, Pa. I don’t put up with people hating me and I am damn sure not going to put up with people hating my boy or girl because they happened to be born of mixed-blood parents.”
“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.”
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.”
