The beat of Billy’s heart settled as he studied the tom over the rifle’s sights. He loved turkey hunting. The thrill of calling the birds in, of beating them at their own game, rushed in his very blood. The slightest movement, the wrong call, a glint of reflected light or the clink of metal, and the tom would bolt.
Gritts gobbled, and the tom froze, feathers puffing in irritation as it turned its stunning blue head. Sunlight flashed in the red wattle. Then the bird tilted its tail feathers in a dominant display, puffing and strutting.
Billy steadied his breathing as the big bird stepped warily through the spring grass. The feathers caught the sun just right, burning iridescent, shining copper, and almost purple.
No more than ten feet from Billy’s hiding place, the bird hesitated. Billy put the last bit of pressure on the trigger, knowing where it would break.
The old squirrel rifle flashed fire and smoke, the loud bang silencing the birdsong and chirring insects. The hens exploded in flapping confusion.
Through the blue, sulfuric smoke, Billy watched the tom leap into the air, and then collapse to the ground. There it thrashed with a hollow popping of wings; the feet pumped, claws ripping at the grass.
“Nice shot,” John Gritts told him. “I was wondering if you were going to let him walk down the barrel and stare you in the eye.”
“Called him good, John,” Billy told him. “Ain’t nobody better in all the world. I swear, you’re part turkey yourself.”
“I’m Wolf Clan.” He said it deadpan, the faintest of smiles on his broad lips.
“Yeah, and wolves eat turkeys, too.”
“Only when they can catch ’em.”
Crawling clear of the hawthorn, Billy stood in the April sunlight and walked over to the dying tom.
“Took out its spine at the base of the neck,” Gritts noted as he picked up the heavy tom. The head and neck hung by the skin.
Billy slapped through his pants at the ant, now biting his thigh. He made a face and flipped his blond hair out of his eyes. “It was a choice. Lose the bullet, or take a chance on souring the meat with a body shot.”
From the patch box he took a bit of cloth, plopped it into his mouth to wet it, and began swabbing his rifle barrel.
“Four shots, four birds. Your pap will buy you more lead.” Gritts stared around the spring clearing, bounded on one side with redbud and with a stand of sassafras on the other. Behind it rose the billowed majesty of oak, hickory, and sycamore forest. Varying shades of green marked the different trees.
“Speaking of which,” John said, “we better get these birds back to your maw. Warm as it is, you bring sour meat home, maybe I’m wrong and your paw won’t buy you no more lead.”
“Aw, hunting’s good. Reckon another day out here wouldn’t … Don’t give me that disapproving look.” Then Billy sighed. “I know. I promised Maw I’d be back.”
“Promises is promises, boy.” Gritts narrowed an eye, studying Billy’s broad shoulders and strapping arms. “You think you can carry the four of them?”
“Nope,” Billy lied with mock sincerity as he poured thirty grains of powder down the barrel. “But if you’d help, I’m betting Maw’d make sure you got a meal for your labor. Reckon we can throw a couple of these birds into the smokehouse for you. Paw will be home, too.”
Billy squinted up at his friend, a devilish smile bending his lips. “And you’d best be a-gittin’ it soon, ’cause with war talk, Paw ain’t gonna be lounging around the farm for long.”
Gritts seemed to be thinking hard as he attended to the bird. “Might be, too, that you’re thinking that me being there is gonna keep your maw from going after you with a pitchfork for beating up Matt Alsup.”
Billy cut his patch and short-seated a ball before he rammed it home. “He needed a beating.”
“What do you care if Alsup’s sweet on Sarah? They got bottom, them Alsups. Julichayasdi. Tough men … if the Fleetwoods don’t kill ’em all. That feud up north of the line could cook itself into a bigger war than secession. Utana dinidahnawi. Big enemies.”
“Them Alsups got Union leanings.” Billy narrowed an eye as he capped his rifle and settled the hammer to half cock.
“So does your paw. You keep beating up Sarah’s gentlemen callers, she’s gonna be a old … What’s that word white men use?”
“Old maid?”
“Sgida. That’s it.” Then he changed the subject. “When is your brother Butler going to be coming home?” Gritts threw the bird over his shoulder, holding it by the long legs. Together they skirted the plum bushes to a trail that led back into the shadows beneath the tall oaks and hickories. There, in a hollow between the roots, lay two toms and an incautious hen who’d stepped in front of Billy’s rifle.
“Butler? Hell, he may already be there. He was due a week ago. But you know travel in Arkansas. Can’t figger Butler. Never could. What kind of feller sits in a cabin reading about long-dead folks when he could be out huntin’ squirrels and critters.”
Gritts gave him a deadpan stare. “We have had this talk. He’s the kind that feels things, dreams the spirit roads, and sees other worlds than this one. A different spirit power. He should have been born Cherokee. Your white men are going to break something inside him before it’s all done. You’ll see.”
Billy’s squint tightened. “So, what do you think of Sarah?”
Gritts chuckled, throwing another of the turkeys over his shoulder to join the first. “Your sister is an unburned fire.”
Billy heaved two toms over his right shoulder, and bent down to grasp his rifle. “An unburned fire?”
“You know of Selu?”
“The Cherokee corn maiden?” Billy resettled his load, watching a squirrel bound through the lower branches. Hitting a running squirrel in the trees was the toughest shot to make. Even
