often did when she confused him; he smiled and repeated what she had just said. “In the britches.”
Evelyn loved his smile. She had never told him that, but he had the nicest teeth. Strange that she should notice. To her best recollection, she’d never paid much attention to teeth before. “My pa likes to say it’s the Almighty’s way of keeping us humble.”
“Humble?”
“You know. Meek and mild and respectful.”
“Respectful?”
“Yes. When you treat another person the way you’d want them to treat you. Nice. Friendly. With respect.”
Dega brightened. At last something he understood. “Respect be good. Nansusequa believe respect all things.”
“A fine philosophy as far as it goes. But how do you respect a bear about to eat you? Or a hostile about to slit your throat?” Evelyn could think of a host of other instances.
Dega was amazed at how her mind worked. It was always bouncing around all over the place. “Can respect bear. Just not let bear eat you.”
Evelyn chuckled. “True enough, I suppose. But the last thing on my mind when something is trying to fill its belly with mouthfuls of me is treating it with respect. I’d rather shoot it.” She caught herself, and shook her head. “Listen to me. I sound more like my brother every day, don’t I?”
Dega answered as honestly as he knew how. “Brother sound like man. You sound like woman.”
“I certainly hope so, you charmer you.”
For the life of him, Dega couldn’t recall what a charmer was. She was smiling, though, so he figured it must be a good thing. “Me great charmer.”
More mirth spilled from Evelyn. She liked his sense of humor almost as much as she liked his teeth. “You know, I’ve never met anyone I can talk to as freely as I can talk to you.”
“Talking you much nice,” Dega said. Inside he cringed at his poor use of the white tongue. It was so hard to master. His father said it was because the Nansusequa tongue and the white tongue were so unlike. In the Nansusequa language, a word had one meaning and one meaning only. In the white language a word might have five meanings and each was shaded differently so that it must be used exactly right or it made no sense. Recently he had begun to despair of ever learning it well enough to make Evelyn proud.
“I wonder what it is about you,” Evelyn said. Secretly, she had begun to suspect and the suspicion troubled her. She told herself she was too young. She told herself she had no interest in growing attached to someone. She told herself she was just being silly. Then she would look at him and something stirred deep down inside, something that never stirred before. She shook her head in annoyance.
“You all right?” Dega had found that her face often gave away her moods much better than her words did.
“I couldn’t be happier.” The devil of it was, Evelyn truly couldn’t. She liked being with him more than she liked just about anything. Yet more reason for her to be troubled.
Evelyn took a few slow breaths to compose herself and saw that the rest of the family had stopped. She brought her mare to a halt and wondered why Teni and Miki were grinning.
Waku said, “We find buffalo soon, you think, Evelyn King?”
“There’s no predicting,” Evelyn replied. “At this time of year most are to the south, but there’s always some that stick around. I’m surprised we haven’t come across a few by now.” She paused. “There’s no need to be so formal. Just call me Evelyn. I get to call you Waku, don’t I?” She liked the custom they had of allowing those who were near and dear to them to use a short version of their name. Their full names were a mouthful.
“I hope we find buffalo soon.” The hunt had been Waku’s idea. His wife had seen a buffalo robe that belonged to the wife of Zach King and mentioned that she would like to have a robe of her own one day. He’d taken that as a hint, and here they were.
A gust of wind against Evelyn’s back prompted her to swivel in the saddle. To the west, dark clouds coiled and writhed like so many snakes. A thunderhead was moving in. It might pass north of them and it might not. She pointed and said, “We need to find shelter before that hits.”
“You do not like rain?” Waku asked.
“I like it just fine. It’s the storm I can do without. I’ve been caught in one or two prairie storms, and believe you me, it’s like being caught in the end of the world. The rain falls in buckets, the wind is fit to blow you over, and then there’s all that lightning.”
Waku thought she exaggerated, but he used his heels and tugged on the lead rope to the packhorse.
Dega studied the dark clouds. They didn’t appear particularly ominous, but he had learned to trust Evelyn’s judgment. If she was worried, they should be worried. In his own tongue he said, “We would be wise to do as she advises, Father.”
Motioning at the expanse of green that stretched to the eastern horizon, Waku said, “Show me where.”
For as far as the eye could see there was flat, flat and more flat. Not so much as a single tree to the east, north or south.
Ahead, dirt mounds sprouted out of the earth.
A prairie dog town, Evelyn realized, and was about to say they should give it a wide berth when Waku reined to the right to go around. She did the same. Out of the corner of her eye she admired Dega’s handsome profile. He glanced at her, and she quickly averted her gaze and hoped she wasn’t blushing.
Evelyn couldn’t say exactly when, but a change had come over her. She was different somehow. She’d asked her mother about it, and her mother smiled knowingly and said she was on the cusp of womanhood, and that all women went through it. Which didn’t make the changes any less disturbing.
A sound filled the air, a rattle like that of dry seeds in a gourd.
Alarm spiked through Evelyn. She had forgotten. Prairie dog towns were home to more than prairie dogs. They were also home to creatures that fed on the prairie dogs. Creatures like ferrets—and rattlesnakes. Even as she realized what the sound signified, her mare whinnied and reared. Evelyn grabbed at the saddle, but she was too slow. She was unhorsed.
The jolt of hitting the ground jarred Evelyn hard. She heard Dega and the others cry out, and she went to roll over so she could push to her feet.
The next instant a reptilian head reared, its mouth spread wide, its fangs bared.
Chapter Three
His last name was Venom. Those who knew him said the name fit his nature like a tight sock, but they never said it to his face.
Venom had a first name, which he never used. It was Nadine. If anyone else used it he kicked their teeth in. He hated it. He hated a lot of things. He hated preachers because they had their heads in the clouds. He hated kids because they were sniveling brats. He hated women because they put on airs. He hated dogs because they were always sniffing the hind ends of others dogs, and he hated cats because they were always rubbing against him and he couldn’t abide being touched by anything or anyone unless it was a woman he paid for.
Venom hated Mexicans. He hated blacks except when it suited his purpose. He hated Indians, all Indians, with a fierce hate born of the loss of his father to a barbed shaft when he was seven. He hated Indians so much that when he drifted down to Santa Fe after the beaver trade petered out and met a man by the name of Kirker who offered him a job scalping redskins for money, he eagerly accepted.
The Mexican government was paying bounty for Apache scalps. Good money. A hundred dollars for a warrior’s hair, fifty dollars for the hair of a female, twenty-five for the hair of what Venom liked to call “Apache gnats.”
Kirker had formed a company of scalpers made up of men who could hold their own against the most formidable warriors on the continent. Men without scruples. Men who regarded killing Indians as exterminating vermin. Men who could take a squalling Apache infant and bash its brains out on the rocks.
